Flight Of The Jokers Wild Revised
by CSS Stravag
Summary: Jokers Wild Set 2, replaces Destiny. Chapter 11 UP! Now permanently marooned in Cosmic Era timeline, the Task Force Jokers Wild settles into the derelict L4 colonies and sets up a homeland for the disenfranchised. The Second Bloody Valentine War begins with a nuclear exchange, but shall be writ on the surface of Terra in a clash of beliefs that will shake the Cosmic Era.
1. Looking Forward, Looking Back

(Jokers Wild Set 2: Flight Of The Jokers Wild)

This is where the scorecard really changes.

Jokers Wild 1 and its attendant side stories (Those Whom Chance Plays With, Dilemma of Flay Allster) is really the beginning stage of a long-ass nightmare. The Jokers Wild tale is going to be eight arcs long, and six of the eight arcs will include an outright war in them (exceptions being arc 1, which is mostly civilian, and arc five, which is a noncombat-focused arc). Of course, there will be side stories, lots of 'em, of both combat and noncombat nature. I have far too much material for dimension-hopping to call it quits just on the eight-arc main, and this fact is only exasperated by the sheer scale of time involved.

Set 1 of the Jokers Wild (Legend of the Jokers Wild) established the location and the players, such as they are. Set 2 is where the first round of this most dangerous game comes to pass; a great and terrible war looms ahead for everyone, and there will be a lot of blood in the name of the principles involved. Who stands at the end of the shooting match determines the fate of Existence to come; the necessity of time involved dictates that even a small change in this time frame can have massive consequences in the decades, centuries, eons to come. This is the true location where the outcome of Ragnarok is determined, and you will understand why in the coming chapters.

New alliances will be forged, old friendships will be tested, and at the end there will be a form of solution to the never-ending cycle of hatred. I can guarantee this whole thing will not be pretty, but sometimes the worst problems have the nastiest solutions.

-x-x-x-x- DISCLAIMERS -x-x-x-x-

As stated prior, this story contains a lot of characters, units, governments, history that I have created and that I have incorporated from other works. A lot of this is a multi-crossover fanfiction, basically, with elements as far-flung as anime, books, television, video games and board games. I will introduce most of the material as is needed, the rest (and interesting or entertaining facts) will be footnoted in my usual fashion. Thus, when you see (0) it means to check footnote 0 at the bottom of the document for some interesting intel. Seriously, go ahead, scroll down to the bottom of the chapter and check it, there is a footnote 0 at the bottom. I guarantee it. You might even find it useful. Much of the footnotes will be a clarification to something that people might find confusing, like an unfamiliar concept or term. Some of it may be humorous as well.

Note that the primary warship in the story was built using Battletech's rules from Aerotech 2, but is not legal for Battletech / Aerotech play, as it is well over twice too heavy for the maximum weight limit. Specs for the involved units will be included in dribbles in the story and I will do a full TRO section of the various units at the end of the chapters, as there are some that like the conversions from Gundam to Battletech. By the way, if anyone has thus far actually used one of the conversions in an Aerotech 2 game, please message or review with your opinions of the conversion.

Purists take note: I am trying to scale all included elements into a relatively cohesive set of comparisons here, though there are marked disparities in all included elements. They will be obvious, as they should be. When universes collide, the sound they make is loud and very very scary. There is simply no way to get around it, but one can make it (somewhat) logical. This will mean that I WILL have to call Gundam on its engineering problems, and I WILL call Battletech on its engineering problems. There's plenty of FUBAR to go around.

GENERAL DISCLAIMER: I own no rights to any included material from any other stories. I intend no offense in such use.

VIOLENCE WARNING: It is the root of all Gundam, for without violence there is no war. Otherwise, it is called 'negotiations', follow? And even I cannot imagine a 'Gundam' with only negotiating, such would be less entertaining than watching paint dry.

OC WARNING: This story is OC-centric, and not in the typical fashion. Of course the main characters and a lot of the secondary and side characters of SEED, SEED Destiny, and SEED Astray will show up. You have been warned.

BAAAAAD LANGUAGE WARNING: This story revolves around a fleet of misfits and jokers. Expect foul language; they are Navy and Marines, after all. Also expect possible suggestiveness, crazy situations, interpretiveness, analysis, and lots and lots of violence. You have been warned.

DICE WARNING: Events in this story will be controlled by the dice, and are concrete, true-random results provided by number generation services. These results will change events dynamically and/or modify established plans. After all, there is no mistress more cruel than fate.

POLITICAL WARNING: Political concepts and methods may be presented in this story that may conflict with established 'norms'. This is deliberate on the part of the author, to show different and rather sharp viewpoints on these subjects. The views expressed most likely do not match the views of the author, and are also subject to the dice at any time.

ANTI-POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WARNING: AT NO TIME will this story be politically correct. Real life is not politically correct, much less 'nice' in some definitions of the word. If you take issue with this, I recommend finding another read.

ZZZ-END DISCLAIMERS

And thus, onto the story from another corner of Existence...

* * *

><p>(Jokers Wild Set 2: Flight Of The Jokers Wild)<br>(Set 2, Chapter 1: Looking Forward, Looking Back)

(14 July CE 72, 0830 hours Lima (local) time)  
>(Heavens Base, Iceland, Terra)<p>

"This briefing is now in order," and Admiral William Sutherland activated the tape recorder for the conference room. "The subject of this briefing and conference is the new Mendel class of warship, hull designation Mike-Echo-Charlie-dash-hull number. The contents of this briefing are rated Top Secret – Special Access Only / Need To Know."

"We have personnel looking at the inside of the stripped cargo versions, and our officer on the inside has already reported that he likes the modular construction they used." They were looking pretty hard at one of the ships in use by a Scandinavian freighter firm that held contracts with Mendel and ZAFT to do asteroid mining and transport.

"Modular construction in a naval application," Sutherland shook his head. "Since the Magi first announced their presence to us, they have inverted every piece of military logic we have lived and survived on – and made it all work. Everything is armored, beam weapons are not God-mod arsenal, nukes will be used as counterforce instead of anti-civilian weapons, warships are extremely deadly platforms, the list goes on. It's damn near like they live to break every rule in the book."

"Or maybe we're playing by the wrong rulebook?" A senior Captain said.

"We were here first, it's our rulebook to write," a Commodore replied with a dangerous tone.

"Stay your rebuke, Commodore Gupten," Admiral Sutherland ordered. "This is not a briefing of Blue Cosmos yes-men, and you are not to treat it as such. Yes, this is OUR world, and after a fashion this is our rulebook, but we have to clean out the 'exceptions' appendix first before we can return to the necessary chapters of purifying the human race. Follow?"

"Aye, sir," the chastised Commodore answered immediately.

"We need a definitive naval strategy to take these ships out of action," the Admiral submitted. "We can't use nuclear arms against them in any fashion; the _Mjolnr_ is equipped with a total of four antimatter shells for its massive Rail Guns, with each shell being equivalent to 1 gigaton of explosive force. I don't need to explain to any of you what manner of devastation that will cause to our world." All the officers present in the room nodded grimly. The largest (and most insanely impractical) nuclear weapon ever used had been a 50-megaton weapon that leveled a goodly portion of a Russian (then Soviet) island. The weapon Sutherland mentioned was twenty times more powerful per shot – and the _Mjolnr_ had four shots to use on the planet or any other target deemed necessary.

"If they parked that warhead two kilometers over DC and detonated it, you can start by writing off the entire east coast of North America," Commodore Dale Roux explained coldly. "There won't be an intact piece of glass anywhere in North America, the Appalachian Mountains will be partially flattened and the shockwave will cause a notable tsunami in Europe and Africa. Atmospheric refraction could theoretically cause the shockwave to travel around the world and bust windows as far as India and Afghanistan; nuclear fallout and dust spall will cause radiation problems at least briefly, and we will get to see some honest-to-God global warming when it raises the world atmospheric temperature a degree or two just from pure energy transfer."

"I can think of less pleasant ways to go out, but not many," Commodore Gupten answered calmly. His expression was anything but calm.

"Naval strategy, people," Sutherland ordered. "Let the politicians decide how to deal with Mendel's nuclear fang – if at all."

"Frankly, sir, they have this tiger by the balls," Captain Fedden, on loan to the meeting from the Intelligence services, registered his opinion with almost zero tact. "Sure, these new _Garm_-class ships are small farts compared to the larger _Riga_-class missile frigates and the yet-larger _Sendai_ or _Flame Eater_ destroyers, but 'smaller' is still a hollow reed when the only ship we have comparable to it is an _Archangel_-class ship. Last I checked, Admiral, we don't have very many of those sitting around, and those we have are not crewed to the standard the Magi train. Excepting your ship, Rear Admiral," and he nodded to the one lady in the room.

"I Concur, Admiral," Rear Admiral Natarle Badgiruel replied in a clipped fashion. She had been told her promotion from the Trial of Possession against Mendel was on the bounty of a deceased Mendel warship, but the promotion board had decided that killing one of the famed Angel Team was just as worthy a goal. "The one time I went toe-to-toe with their ships, it did not end well for the _Dominion_. Size is only part of the equation; each ship they have carries the equivalent of an entire Earth Alliance flotilla's guns, twice that in fighters or Mobile Suits, and at least twice, probably thrice a flotilla's armor and point defense capability. The only advantage we have is the positron weapons on the _Archangel_-class ships – and good luck surviving long enough to use one. They know about that advantage clearly and are prepared to deal with it."

"Solutions?" Sutherland asked his assembled team.

"Retire the _Drake_-class ships, quietly," Commodore Gupten said. "Those old ships were good back in the days of challenging and chasing merchant traffic, but nowadays they lack the necessary firepower – even in quantity – to pose any serious threat to existing naval forces."

"Sell the _Drake_ ships to the third-string countries, like Scandinavia or Equatorial?" Captain Fedden opined. "Either way, decommission the whole class, Admiral. The _Drake_-class ships are good on paper, but all they are nowadays is a death trap to the personnel we assign to them."

"Increase the _Nelson_-class ship production to counter?" Sutherland asked in follow-up, having taken clear note of the recommendation. "Like the sell idea, by the way, Captain. I'll be making that recommendation today; the other nations are making noise about building their own navies and holdings in space, so that gives them the illusion of a start." What applied to Mendel just as readily applied to the Earth Alliance: the _Drake_-class ships could present a threat to merchant traffic or under-equipped pirates, but against anything more substantial they would fold. Therefore Mendel and ZAFT would likely not complain about the sales.

"I recommend we step up production of _Agamemnon_ and _Archangel_-class ships, Admiral," Commodore Badgiruel said. "_Agamemnon_ costs less and has two sets of Gottfried guns, which will put a hurt on any of the Magi ships. It lacks the missile and CIWS capability of the _Archangel_, but it also costs a lot less than an _Archangel_ and has a smaller crew contingent."

"Mobile Weapons?" Sutherland asked.

"Dagger L is a good start, especially with the new Doppelhorn or the older Launcher or IWSP packs." A 'friend' in Orb had smuggled the revised IWSP schematics out to Blue Cosmos, and from there to the hands of the Earth Alliance. "I keep hearing noise about a new model MS, something called Windam," Captain Fedden said. "Any advantage we can take, the better."

"We will need more," Sutherland said.

"Step up training," Natarle said. "Half of Mendel's advantage is brutal and continual training. The other half is technology. We can reduce their lead by half, which is a start."

"Concur," Commodore Gupten echoed. "We can't match them in tech, not for a decade or two, but training is a gimme. If we increased the training budget by as much as a quarter, we could expect to double our net results per formation."

"Sales from the _Drake_-class ships should easily cover that," Captain Fedden opined.

"You win," and the Admiral wrote down the suggestion. "Now, let's discuss this _Garm_-class ship in detail."

-x-x-x-

(16 July C.E. 72, 1630 hours Lima (West Pacific) time)  
>(Gigafloat Mobile Spaceport, South Pacific)<p>

While Orb rebuilt its nominal space launch capabilities, the Gigafloat Mass Driver had been seconded to the island nations to better facilitate moving materials to and from space. The Mass Driver itself was good for moving certain kinds of cargo, but most of the dirty work was done by the massive Dropships that landed on the Gigafloat as substitute for the now-crowded Onogoro Airport / Spaceport. The Earth Alliance already had its own mass driver, the Victoria Driver was still in working order, and the other two spacefaring players had their own methods of departing the planet. Commercial traffic invariably went the way of the Gigafloat; the Earth Alliance had restricted the use of the one EA mass driver to military traffic, leaving cross-atmospheric retail concerns to fend for themselves.

Of course, with the massive influx of cargo operations to the Gigafloat, so came ways to deal with it. Part of it was an influx of new equipment to deal with it, the remainder was good old Junk Guild ingenuity.

"MOVE IT UP, YA FORKERS! THIS DAMN DROPSIP AIN'T WAITIN' ALL DAY!" The loading foreman shouted.

'Greasy' McPhennel snorted, though only loud enough to be heard by the vehicle technician riding along with him. He decided a little radio humor was in order. "Greasy to all stations declaring bet pool: how long before the foreman's shouting causes the foreman to have an aneurysm? Email your guesses and wagers to the usual location. Remember, no bet, no bucks!"

"Get back to work, 'Greasy'," the Foreman ordered over the same radio channel. The tech he was riding with (and offhand trying to impress) sniggered at the exchange.

Greasy did just as ordered, even though he had not directly canceled the bet pool. It was a bullshit bet to begin with; in the opinion of the freight workers on the Gigafloat, it was impossible for said Foreman to have any manner of lethal health problem on the justification that common mortal hands or problems could not kill evil. Still and all, it was the thought that counted to the 'Forkers' (Forklift Operators) and the moment of brevity in an otherwise breakneck duty shift that truly brought smiles to an otherwise overworked and dour crowd.

His hands maneuvered the massive forklift with gross ease, belying years of practice in moving large objects. In this case, the large object in question was a 20,000-kilo cargo shipping container, the kind usually seen on trains or massive cargo ships. This one was labeled 'Allster Industries', and was probably some manner of low-value appliances headed to Mendel. The Allster Conglomerate was famous for their beam sabers, but really made their money on civilian pursuits, which explained why Mendel had no objection to them shipping material in; everything was inspected at the dock, but at least they had import authorization.

"Geh, damn exos," 'Greasy' complained. The small forklifts were being slowly replaced by the Cargo Exoskeletons being manufactured out of several locations in Orb and Mendel, which changed the dynamic of freight movement around the facility. The exoskeletons were easily more maneuverable than even the smallest forklifts, were a bit more flexible than the forklifts (they could lift any object, not just palletized materials), and each massed considerably less than a standard forklift, but their overland speed was a bit slower than the old forklifts. This meant a waiting line for the travel up the ramp to the Dropship, and it also meant that the large forklifts would not be going out of style until they could be replaced with mass-manufacture Cargomechs, something Mendel was not making noise about.

"They are kinda cute though, and a lot smaller than forklifts for all that they carry the same freight," the Tech admitted. Something about her voice did nothing less than instantly get his attention and hold it.

"Still, they could be just a little bit faster," Greasy finished his complaining. After a trudge that lasted thirty seconds, he was in the clear and could maneuver at proper speed inside the cargo holds of the dropship. He checked the IVIS system set up for the use of the Gigafloat cargo systems and determined that his container was destined for cargo deck three, two levels above himself. Two short ramp trips took him up to the appropriate level.

'Greasy' had a bad habit of declaring the faults of the Magi and Mendel personnel, often times to their faces, which had resulted in a few fist-fights and a lot of people that laughed at him. All things considered, movement and marshaling of cargo was not on that list of faults. Waiting for him was a marshaller with lighted wands and a clear idea where the light cargo containers were going inside the bay. This Dropship came down with a full load of metal from Mendel's salvage operations and manufactured goods from the PLANTs, it would be leaving with a full load of foodstuffs and other manufactured goods. Such was the necessities of life in space, and 'Greasy' McPhennel was all too happy to have the job moving freight. It beat the hell out of being one of the poor Earth Alliance civvies barely scraping by in these days.

Apparently, the same thought occurred to the technician: "Better a job here fixing cargo movers than being in the North American theater trying to find a burger-flipping detail," she admitted as Greasy maneuvered to the signals of the marshaller.

"No shit," 'Greasy' replied. "27 percent unemployment since the war ended. Helluva way to run a railroad."

"What about Mendel?" she asked.

"I'll explain in a moment. Here, pay attention," McPhennel ordered of his trainee. "The marshaller just gave me a stop order, now he's signaling both forks rotate down. So," and he grabbed a pair of handles on the fork control panel and rotated them down slowly. After a moment, the marshaller changed his gestures. "Now he's ordering me to lower the load." a different handle moved the fork assembly up and down, which he accomplished smoothly enough that the container barely jolted. The marshaller gave it a quick location inspection and waved McPhennel off with a salute. "Getting the gist of it?"

"Doesn't seem too hard," she said.

"It'll get easier with practice," 'Greasy' replied.

"Anyway, how is Mendel doing?"

"11.7 percent unemployment as of last week, with a 300 percent unemployment turnover rate per month."

"That's...wait, what? 300 percent turnover? How?" she asked with clear surprise to tone.

"Boom-town economy," 'Greasy' answered after he put the forklift on the ramp headed down to the base level. "Businesses open and close with alarming frequency, merge and sell just as quickly. It's one of their damn good points, they know how to attract brave souls and thrill-seekers as well as the stable businesses. You work for a small outfit one day, you may be looking for a job the next day, and employed again the day after. Their situation is very mobile."

"Could be worse," she admitted.

Neither forklift operator or trainee had any clue the cargo container just left on the third deck had a special cargo inside...

-x-x-x-

(16 July C.E. 72, 1100 UTC)  
>(Terra (Strip) 3, Commercial Block 2, Mendel II Colony)<p>

New citizens in the newest nation of the Cosmic Era had a bit of a learning curve to their new lands; anyone that believed moving to Mendel was rainbows and lollipops was quickly dissuaded of such an airhead notion within a day of arriving. Mendel was quickly gaining a reputation as a land for the brave and the determined, where those with the will to succeed went far, and those without the will to succeed often gave up and moved elsewhere.

Mendel II, the second colony of the Mendel Cluster, was just the same in all real terms, and a little bit rougher than its predecessor. Unlike Mendel One, the Mendel II colony was significantly larger than the first colony and built in the classic Island 3 fashion – a cylinder five miles wide and about twenty miles long. Mendel III, which was still under repair and refurbishment, was its twin in the O'Neill Tandem these colonies were normally built in. Each of both Mendel II and Mendel III were expected to house no less than 2 million persons, and expected a population of 3.3 million at full capacity.

Star Commander (Specialist) Elisa figured that Mendel II was rapidly approaching 1 million persons, mostly the destitute and the defeated of the Earth Alliance and the USSA, seeking escape from the morass on the planet below. Scandinavia did well to walk away almost unscathed and Equatorial took an economic hit with the end of the war, though both were relatively undamaged by the marauding of the war. With Orb and the USSA rebuilding from their time in Hell, much opportunity rested with the 'minor' players ZAFT and Mendel. That said nations had proved in battle their ability to match or soundly defeat the Earth Alliance was enticement to the common man to seek shelter in such lands, and thus avoid being on the losing side of another war. That Mendel was readily accepting immigrants from any land was ample reason to create the influx of immigrants guaranteed safe by the Magi military presence, especially when Orb could not take refugees and ZAFT would not take refugees.

"Or at least, that's how it is supposed to go," she admitted to one of the new merchants in S3-C2. "The Earth Alliance is playing a hefty game of catch-up with us right now, but with their economy crippled from its own failings we're pretty much safe for at least a year, maybe eighteen months."

"War makes a bad eng'n f'r economic growth?" the merchant asked before he spit a glob of tobacco juice into the spittoon he kept against the wall of his storefront. His accented English was thick enough to the point that Elisa had some small problem understanding him. However, his down-home attitude and clear determination had kept his shop going so far for three weeks, a record on this block of commercial buildings on the III Strip. That most stores folded in three days due to poor planning or market analysis was a writ fact, with how frequently storefronts went up and down in this area.

"Yeah, it's not the best, but an economy can grow on the foundation of war," Elisa admitted. "The Old Six grew on somewhere between six and ten percent military budget on a war footing during the Star Empire Wars, and one to five percent military expenditures during a peacetime footing. The rest of their growth was all civilian, or dual-use industry. Our 'friends' down below are doing something on the lines of seventeen percent mil and forty percent dual-use, and doing so on an already-crippled economy due to high energy prices." Elise's estimate was unstated, but just as readily obvious to a business owner: left alone long enough, the Earth Alliance economies would collapse of their own volition. It was a soft mission-kill according to Magi doctrine, but it rendered them incapable of advancing at the necessary pace to properly challenge the Mendel and ZAFT positions, which was perfectly fine to Elisa.

"It'll come t' bad terms soon 'nuff," the merchant said. "Then we get ter do it 'gain." Despite the accent, which Elise couldn't place anywhere except Georgia (Southern United States) English, his point was inexorable. Elisa didn't find it too terribly incongruent to understand, but it was a bit more than she was used to.

"How much are you askin' for that wall plaque?" Elisa pointed to one that had the inscribed words '.45 is so popular because they don't make a .46'

"Five C-bills," the old merchant said.

Elisa looked the plaque over and nodded. It had been carved out of a heavy-grain wood, probably oak or cherry, and engraved with the saying before it had been expertly stained. It would fetch five C-bills anywhere among the Magi lands, so she figured it was a decent deal. "I'll take—"

"SHIT! Thieves! STOP THEM!" A merchant down the road shouted.

Elisa had a bare two seconds to react, but for an Armor Sniper it was no challenge to make the call and take action. She stepped out in front of the teens in question and slammed the frame of her massive Barrett-Federated M225 Sniper Rifle into the chest of the lead runner. For a running lightweight, striking a 10-kilo rifle being held by a 65-kilo stocky female Marine Armor Sniper was just as bad as running face-first into a utility pole. He struck the rifle with his upper chest and folded under it, slamming to the ground and spinning to his right. His comrade, trailing so close to him as to have no forewarning, slammed into the muzzle brake of the massive weapon and rotated around it to the counter; after two-thirds of a full spin, he lost footing on the road curb and slammed to the ground with a clearly audible sound of breaking bone.

"Ooohhh-wee, girl! You laid dem punks out real good!" the southern-American merchant shouted.

"Holy shit dude, what happened?" the first punk asked, cradling the back of his head where it impacted the concrete ground. Answer enough came when Elisa put the muzzle brake to her 50-caliber rifle to his left cheek. "Oh, fuck!"

"You can keep running, boy, but you'll only die tired," she said with clear mirth to voice. She had no intention of even arming her rifle (it was loaded but not chambered), but there was no way the untrained youth could tell the difference visually. "Now, explain to me why a merchant is shouting 'thieves' and I see you running away from him," she ordered.

" 'Cause he's a lying douchebag and we knew something like this would happen," he said, still somewhat stunned from the impact and fall.

Elisa looked up to the merchant that had approached. "These two?"

"Aye," he replied. "Shoplifting small electronics," and the merchant pulled open the injured punk's coat to reveal a pair of music players still in package.

Elise reached back to her equipment belt and pulled her personal PDA. With a few key presses, she had it unlocked. "Copy your security video to this and to a backup storage system, I'll need it as evidence when these punks go before my Star Colonel." She looked down to the punks in question. "Now, kid, let's make one thing clear: calling a merchant a 'lying douchebag' is only going to add to your list of charges, all the more so since you were actually caught doing what he said you did. Follow?"

"Whatever," the punk said, regaining some of his prior gusto but still staring with fear at the end of her rifle. "I'll get off. Hitting me with that rifle's police brutality."

Elise smiled savagely, then reached around the bottom of her rifle frame with her left hand; her right hand never left the handle, though her trigger finger never went inside the guard or even touched the trigger. With a quick jerk of her hand, the bolt of her weapon went back and was released forward with a clearly audible ratcheting sound; the impact of the bolt slamming into battery caused the muzzle brake to slam harder into his cheek, easily hard enough to leave a hickie. "Even doing that isn't 'police brutality' under Mendel law, boy. I suggest you get used to the thought of getting roughed when you break laws, because we don't have all those pussy lawyers you can count on to coddle your sorry ass on the planet below, clear?"

"Erm, yes ma'am," he squeaked. Prior, there had been doubt in his mind as to whether or not she had a live weapon to use on him, but that doubt was now deader than he would be should she pull the trigger.

"Now, you have two choices, kid. One, you return the merchandise and you pay the owner half fair market price for what you stole, or choice two: you get some time in the brig, you forfeit the merchandise by default, and you go before my Star Colonel to answer for this crime. Your call."

"And if I win in court?" he said snidely.

"You won't," the wronged merchant said. "You lifted those players in clear line to two of my cameras. Your PDA, milady?" the merchant handed the sniper her device.

"Once the Star Colonel sees that, he won't hesitate to hamburger you two," Elisa said. "Might even laugh at you two for the embarrassing way you were caught, too."

The stunned punk grunted. "We'll pay."

"Wise choice. Up slow, help your buddy up to his feet, and hobble over to his place and pay up. Then hobble your buddy two blocks up-spin to the nearest hospital." Elise removed her rifle from his face, allowing him to stand. The defiance in his eyes was not unexpected to the Armor Sniper, but meaningless in the overall picture to her.

She had no idea that his defiance would contribute to coming problems far above her purview.

-x-x-x-

(16 July C.E. 72, 1200 UTC)  
>(Dropship <em>Sailboat Reborn<em>, in transit to Mendel colony)

"This is how you do it," the old loadmaster showed the new recruit how to enter the data into the appropriate fields. "We need these lists prepped and ready to go, that way the inspection teams are already ready to prioritize what they have to check on the way in."

"Makes sense, we can low-pri a crate full of tomatoes from Orb, at least while we have a cargo container from Cuba on the ship," and the greenhorn scanned the shipping docs associated with the cargo container. With a few rapid things typed into the scan tool, it was confirmed in the ship's manifest and thereafter in the incoming freight database.

"Man, how fast you typed that in, makin' me look bad," and the old-hand loadmaster wagged a finger at the greenhorn in mock scolding.

"Erpps," the greenhorn grunted, never realizing that he might have been showing up an old hand.

"Eh, fuck it though. So long as this deck's done by the time we get to Mendel, I don't care how fast you do it. If you get it all done with time to spare, you know where the crew lounge is."

"Aye, sir," the new hand said, relieved that the veteran loadmaster had been joking all along.

"Now, have at it kid. Scan each shipping unit in, make sure they're all dogged down tight, and just go around the bay systematically. If you find something that has not been secured properly, call the crew lounge to have the crewmern do it. Your job is to verify and organize, not dog these things down. If they can't do their job right the first time, they'll keep doing it until such a time as they do get it right, clear?"

"Aye, sir," Tony replied dutifully.

"Get to it, we have about four hours before we arrive at Mendel. Average for this lot should be...about three hours to check 'em all." Without further word, the new guy was left alone with a scan tool, a radio, a PDA, and 12,000 tons of cargo.

"This is going to be interesting," the new guy said to the aforementioned crate of tomatoes. Tony scanned the data barcode on the label and was rewarded with the fields on his scan tool being automatically populated by the manifest information already loaded into the ship's man databank. True to the signage on the crate, it was a shipping crate full of tomatoes, specifically 350 kilos of them, from Orb, destination ZAFT PLANT Junius Four.

He moved onward in the row of transport containers, scanning first a palette of engine thrust vectoring pipes and hardware (Mendel destination, 3550 kilograms), then a shipping container from Scandinavia with rope and wire (5,000 kilograms of rope, 12,500 kilograms of wire) headed to a distribution facility in Mendel. The loadmaster trainee knew the distribution facility in question, his older brother worked there as a systems engineer for the automated sorting lines.

Further in that row of freight, Tony encountered an unusual box with only a hazard placard on it (Explosives A class) and the manifest tag. Once scanned, it returned a shipping contents of 'Ammunition, 75mm SLAP, Autocannon' from the bill of lading. He shrugged and continued onward, unsure what the SLAP acronym would be for but relatively assured it was legit. Military alphabet soup came in many flavors, and fool was the civilian that tried to decipher it without a reasonable clue as to what it meant, or so he surmised.

"Allster Enterprises...aren't they the civvie branch of the Allster Industrial Conglomerate?" the loadmaster-trainee asked the large shipping container, with no rightful expectation of an answer. Tony scanned the waybill tag on the outside of the container, and was confirmed in his guess: "Toaster oven kits, blender kits, vacuum cleaner kits, 20,000 kilos worth of container and small consumer appliances. Outstanding," he groused.

The trainee stepped past the center of the cargo container, but stopped mid-stride due to a sound. "The hell?" he asked nobody in particular. The sound continued, and after a few seconds it took on a distinct timbre of something metal against metal, and in a definite pattern. He remembered he had heard the pattern before, but not where he had heard it...until he thought back to Saturday cartoons and an old cartoon about a ship lost at sea that put out a radio warning of three short beeps, three long beeps, and three short beeps. "An SOS? What the hell?"

He listened closer to the container from Allster Enterprises as his right hand reached for his radio. It happened again: three short raps, three long raps, three short ones. Definitely not a normal sound to come from a container full of toasters and vacuums. With a quick motion Tony had his radio up to his face and keyed the channel. "Bridge from cargo three, come back," he requested.

"Go for bridge," the Captain requested.

"Cap'n, I have a funny one down here in section seven, row three. Cargo container from Allster Enterprises with what sounds like an SOS being tapped out inside a box on the inside of the container itself. I think we may have stowaways on board," he said.

The radio was silent for a few moments. "Stand your station fast, seaman," the Captain ordered, using the old wet-navy term for an enlisted man. "I have armed personnel headed your way now. ETA 90 seconds."

"Aye aye, Captain," the greenhorn said, then released the mike button on his radio. "This is a helluva start to my career on a dropship," Tony groused to himself.

In less than a minute, he had company in the form of several of the crewmen with shotguns. Tony knew he would eventually go through small arms training and crew-served arms training, and possibly even ship mobile weapons training, but for the present he was going to learn how to manage freight on the ship and how to repair the _Sailboat Reborn_. Another thirty seconds and he had almost a dozen persons in the vicinity, all were armed with some form of shotgun, sub-machinegun, and one even carried a large Firedrake Support Needler with gyroscopic harness (for stabilization) and AG rail pack to reduce weight.

"Sealed container on north," the senior officer said.

"Locked south, torch the south lock," the Captain ordered. An engine technician used a laser pen torch to cut through the lock shackle in seconds. "Ready for sweep?" the Captain asked. Several heads nodded grimly; everyone knew this could be a very dangerous situation, or it could be a false alarm.

"Tony, you're the doorman for this operation," a twenty-something midshipman ordered of the sixteen-year-old Tony. "When I give the go, you unlatch the door and pull it back, and you stay out of sight of the inside, clear? Don't skylight yourself, don't peek, don't do nothing."

"Yessir," Tony said as he grabbed the handle for the door latch. The midshipman took station behind the other door, then gave Tony a hand signal to open it. Tony immediately yanked up on the handle, twisted it a quarter the way clockwise to unlatch the door and began pulling the door open. Unlike the movies, the door was a heavy monster and it took the bulk of his strength to get it open, but he did as ordered – as was needed – to ensure the job was done right.

The crewman shirked his way between two palettes of vacuum cleaners in boxes to get inside and clear it. "Captain, I'm only about a third way in and I've hit a large metal container inside," the senior crewman said. "Looks like an isolated shipping unit, three meters by three meters." he rapped something on the side of the box, which caused a resounding clang of metal on metal. "It is hollow, and sounds empty."

"Help!" a muffled voice resounded from inside. Whoever had that voice was not that old, in Tony's opinion.

"Palette jacks! Get this container cleared to the steel bulwark! Move it!" The Captain ordered.

Tony stepped up to his own tasking of Loadmaster, realizing that trying to clear the container of contents now would be nothing short of a traffic jam clusterfuck. "You, you, and you! Unsecure the palettes in rows one, two and three along this line," and he indicated the line of palettes immediately adjacent to the door of the container, then indicated three of the midshipmen with lighter weapons. "We can use a cargoframe and a palette jack in this area. I'll be back," Tony said before he jumped over a low box of electronic components and darted off to the central column equipment storage racks.

"Aye, sir," a senior mechanic replied immediately. His wasn't so much trepidation at disobeying orders but a realization that the kid had the best – and fastest – plan for the task.

Tony made it to the Cargoframes speedily and climbed in one without hesitation. It took him thirty seconds to adjust the foot platforms and arm grips, and another thirty seconds to belt in, but once that was accomplished he had no trouble getting it to move intuitively. It wasn't fast, but it was powerful well in excess of his own coordinated strength. He arrived at the rescue spot even before the third palette of goods had been removed from the area to allow easy access to the storage.

"Connolly, get your ass up here to cargo 3 section 7 with a plasma torch, pronto! We have some heavy metal to burn through for a rescue op!" The Captain ordered. "Tony, get those palettes out of there and let the rest hand-jack them away!" The palettes could not be moved by the palette jacks, they were stacked so close to the ceiling that raising the lift section jammed the top of the stack into the ceiling of the container. The powered freight movers would have no such problems – their power could overcome the resistance without issue.

Tony moved the forks into place and rammed them through to the hilt. He was careful to raise the forks only slightly before he began twisting-pulling the stack out. With a slight protest of material against container, the stack came out and he set it aside for the other personnel to palette-jack clear of the area. Tony didn't hesitate in moving in for the second of four palettes, and this one came out just as smooth as the first, though took a little more power to remove – Tony doubted the vacuums on top would be out-of-box usable, but might be repairable.

"Medical team, Captain Satz, stand by for possible casualties or trauma," she barked into her radio. "Two more, Tony, move it!"

"These things only move so fast, Cap'n," Tony replied even as he entered the container proper to remove the next of the last two palettes.

"I'm here, Cap'n," Master Technician Connolly reported as he approached the scene with a plasma welder set. "Who's the bloke?"

"New guy, apparently very adaptable," the Captain answered as Tony set aside palette three.

"Well, he's moving that frame about as fast as expected," the master tech said. "Not bad for a kid with no formal training."

The fourth palette was out of the container and Tony simply walked it out to the maneuver area himself instead of dropping it for the others to deal with. He set the load down as per safety regs, backed off the load, put the forks to the ground, and jumped out of the frame within ten seconds of shutting it down.

"Stand back, kid, we still don't know what's in there," the Captain ordered, with an outstretched hand to prevent Tony from approaching. She had her own arsenal comparative to the others on board, a massive (and antique) AA-12 automatic shotgun with drum feed full of buckshot shells. Connolly was readily visible as he cut into the steel container with a plasma torch, but what was also readily visible was the six crew members with shotguns and sub-machineguns waiting nearby in case the contents of that stowaway box was hostile. Weapon-mounted flashlights substituted for the usual industrial lights that would be used on a repair or rescue project, providing the welder easy lighting for his task.

Cutting enough of a port-hole to access the inside of the box took almost three minutes, during which the sound of a voice could be heard from inside. "Ten seconds!" the master technician shouted as he prepared to cut the final ten centimeters of the box. His cutter was drowned out for a moment by the sounds of shotguns being armed, even the massive AA-12 joined the cacophany, then eerie silence short of the cutter. "Last bit!"

The torch chopped through the last three centimeters of metal, followed by the master tech quickly grabbing the top edge of the severed plate and hauling it away from the contents of the stowaway box. The resounding clang of the metal sheet on the inside of the cargo container gave testimony to how thick and heavy it was, ample proof that whoever was inside wanted to stay inside for a reason.

The sight on the far side of the box was ample to wrench Tony's heart. "A kid?" he asked rhetorically even as the midshipmen began searching the corners of the container.

"Four, captain! Three unconscious, they don't look all that good, one awake!"

"Here," the master technician reached into the room with his welding gloves and picked the exhausted but conscious child out of the container. "Medic! Three more still to come out!"

"Room clear! Three non-coms remaining!" one of the elder crewmen said.

"Pull them outta there! Now! Medics to the front!" Captain Satz ordered. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what were these kids thinking?" she asked as the weapon lights and now flashlights peered into the container.

"Whatever they were thinking, it probably revolved around 'get the hell out of Dodge in a concealed manner', and they almost made it," the master technician said as a young teen lady was stretchered out of the container. Tony followed close, carrying one that was almost his age in a classic fireman's carry. "He really is a kinda versatile whelp. Intend on keepin' him, boss-lady?"

"So far, yeah," the Captain said, then pulled the drum from her AA-12 and ejected the loaded shell. "Carbon dioxide scrubbers, a porta-potty, water, MREs, bedding, these kids planned on a helluva long travel. Wonder what went wrong?"

"These did, Cap'n," one of the engine techs said. "These scrubbers are both shot, they were jury-rigged to run off car batteries. Cooked the controller systems slowly, so they ran for a while but eventually burned out."

The Captain arched her eyebrows. "That's fairly clever. I can also see vents in the top of the box, so that probably helped, along with the vent in the top of the exterior container having been bypassed. Slick planning for the kids, I'll give 'em points on that."

"These kids must've been in transit for two weeks," the loadmaster for Deck 1 opined. "Given the amount of empty water jugs and ration packs, they had a helluva haul."

"What do you think? Call it Midwest US to LA, grab a container ship to the Gigafloat, then loaded on here?" the Captain asked Tony as he inspected the interior of the transit box.

"Sounds reasonable, and I think it's been almost three weeks for them," Tony answered. He climbed into the container, followed close by the captain; both had flashlights to look through the darkness. "These trash bags are compressed, they've got more in them than appears at first glance. This water usage would be appropriate for hot zones for two weeks, or cold zones for three, maybe twenty-five days given their size."

"And they planned on as much as another twenty days, given the rations and water they still had," the Captain estimated by a quick glance over their remaining supplies.

"Toilet would not have made it that long," the master technician said. "It's pretty well full right now."

"Empty water jugs would have done just as well," Tony said. "Awkward to use, though."

"Desperate times, awkward measures," the Captain said. "Damn good ears and damn good reaction, by the way. You made every call on the up and up for this one. Ever consider a career as a dropship crewman?"

"I dunno," Tony replied with clear sarcasm to his 'considering it'. It was clear that with a job like this, he wasn't about to walk away. "This...isn't typical, right?"

"No, this is desperation, plain and simple," the Master technician said as he picked up a loaded and cocked pistol nearby one of the blankets.

"Why would they want to be boxed up and shipped to Mendel like this?" the Captain asked.

It would be a question with a sharp answer...and a lot of repercussions.

-x-x-x-

(16 July C.E. 72, 1400 UTC)  
>(ZAFT Military facility Armory One)<p>

The exterior of the colony had been built in record time, thanks in no small part to the assistance of Mendel's rapidly-growing Colony Construction Organization. With the exterior done, their work was complete and their attention turned next to the new space graving dock _Asgard_, where the construction of Jumpships would allow humanity to expand to the stars. With the exterior of the new PLANT built, it was now in the hands of ZAFT to build and prepare the internal facilities, most of which would be military, military-industrial, or support.

Thus, it was time to state the purpose of Armory One and explain to a world why force of arms was needed. Mendel would have no problem with the thought, he rest assured, but other nations would take issue with the new and mostly-military PLANT.

"Fellow citizens of the PLANTs, enlisted and officers of the ZAFT armed forces, residents of space and Earth watching from afar, I welcome you all to the newest colony in space." Chairman Durandal waited for the applause from the spectators to subside before he continued. "Through a combination of ZAFT engineering, Orb resourcefulness, and Mendel spacefaring skill, this PLANT is online fully six months ahead of schedule." Again, he paused for the semi-obligatory clapping. It had not taken him long to become used to the thought of the continual interruptions, but the necessity of them was a bit lower than they showed in his opinion. "Thus, by resolution of the ZAFT supreme council, and in accordance with treaty promises between the Multimage Protectorate of Mendel and the Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty, I hereby commission this PLANT as the industrial and military facility Armory One." The clapping and cheering for his declaration of commission was the loudest yet, and even included whistles and cheers from the ZAFT military personnel as well as the various construction workers listening in.

With the camp cheerleading done, Durandal decided it was now time to begin the process of cementing positions and advancing causes. "A year ago, we had no beliefs of anything outside the earth sphere, excepting those few brave souls who still follow the old religions. We have long known the skies are filled with stars; we have long suspected the existence of parallel entropy in Existence, but we had no proof. More to the point, we had no real intention to move past the cradle of humanity, instead content to limit ourselves to this planet and its nearby neighbors, at least subconsciously if not in writing. No being has dreamed more longingly of escaping the gravity well of Earth than we humans; no human has tried to do so with any more success than the brave souls now living on Mars, but even they have gone to no more effort to explore the heavens than to seek a new residence away from the morass of Terra. We must ask ourselves two questions today, and we must provide two answers if we expect to hand a bright, clear future to our descendants."

The warehouse where he was holding the meeting was deadly quiet in the wake of his initial position. "The first question we must ask ourselves is simple: why would people flee the planet, flee to Mars, in the wake of the supposed wonders of our day and age?" A short stir erupted from the crowd but was quickly silenced of its own accord. "The answer for this question is inherently simple: humanity has built many wonders of technology and society in the hundreds of years since we first took to space, but at our core we are still the same beings who fought by sword and shield in the forests of Europe over flags and principles and land. We are unchanged from the days of trench warfare in World War 1, unchanged from the race riots of the 2020s, unchanged from the Reconstruction War, even unchanged by the near annihilation of the S2 Influenza and the destruction of Junius Seven. We have come so far and yet we have nothing to truly show for 'progress' other than material achievements and a limited release from our planet of birth."

Silence permeated the area, but Durandal knew intrinsically that he had their attention. "The second question is also simple: what is humanity missing, or what is holding back humans, from reaching to the stars that have so long danced in our eyes and flown within our grasp? By all rights, we have more today in most of the fields necessary to construct a working Jumpship than did the first pioneers of the technology, Kearney and Fuchidia. Our computational systems are well in excess of theirs, our material handling and assembly is equal to theirs, and our personal engineering skills far outstrip those visionaries of interstellar travel. Even the best minds of the Earth Alliance can out-vision the scientists of 2030 Terra, that is the measure of our progress in those lines. The only reasonable answer is that we are our own limit."

A harangue of clapping gave him pause, but it was short and Durandal pressed on. "Our limit is entirely inside the confines of our mind: we believe this is our home, we think of the measure of Existence as nothing more than the Earth and the Moon and the few colonies floating around it. With those limits, nobody is willing to put forth effort to walk farther than humanity has done so before. This does not create the future we can rely on to give us a continued existence. When you ask scientists about a controversial topic, ten different scientists may have for you ten different answers. When you ask if Earth will last forever, those same ten scientists will agree on one answer: our planet will not last forever, our race will not last forever unless we leave the cradle of humanity and seek our fortunes elsewhere. The date is not specific, but in a few billion years our star, the Sun, will burn out. With it will go everything we have built, all the lives and memories and hopes of an entire race, doomed to our own temerity."

The silence still echoed throughout the warehouse, and Durandal expected it this time. "It is a simple thing to frame the consideration of a billion years in the thought that it is not our problem. For today, the star which we orbit will do nothing more than shine down upon us; A billion years alone gives the human race fifty million generations to tackle the problem of where else to take residence, thus a reasonable man would say that someone, somewhere, would solve this problem for us. A reasonable man, but an indolent man in the end; one who does nothing more than look to his own hands and no farther would believe that. With such a mindset in use our descendants are left to clean up the mess we have created, a policy which is shown not to be smart policy throughout history. Indolence in such fashion has never solved problems, and in most cases such indolence has caused more problems than taking action. This is not the policy we must take if we expect to survive our own faults. We must stand and take possession of our own future, instead of waiting for outside events to write it for us."

It took a few moments for the message to sink in, and the clapping was slow to begin, but his ovation lasted thirty seconds. "Slightly more than a year ago, we learned in an abrupt fashion that there is more to Existence than we behold, that there are other parties out there. We learned that it is possible to leave the cradle – and it is easier than ever imagined, if one knows what angle to take. We learned that we can build our own fate."

The response was a bit faster, and not all that reserved. "Last year, we entered into treaties to assist Mendel in developing Jumpships for the dual purpose of returning a warning to their homeland and to allow those willing to leave Terra to do so. That task continues apace even as we speak; the first sections of the _Asgard_ Shipyard Station are being assembled as we speak; the outlay of resources is large, especially for small nations such as Orb, Mendel, and ZAFT, but the purpose is beyond mere numbers or resources. The purpose is the prevention of the eventual annihilation of humanity; from this task, we cannot shrink away."

The reaction was immediate and loud. Durandal had to wait fifteen seconds for the cheering to subside before he continued onto the heart of the matter. "This brings me to the necessity of Armory One. We are willing to look past the reach of our hands, as are other groups among the scattered nations. Some are indifferent to the task, following in the usual mantra of decades and centuries past that it is a problem for the future; not their concern. There are parties among a few nations, however, who hold an immeasurable tract of power and the desire to use that power to control the earth sphere. These persons seek to use any means necessary to gain and maintain that power: terrorism, political threats, military posturing, even nuclear warfare and genocide are their tools. They have tried to use nuclear arms against the PLANTs, they fired on Mendel with nuclear arms, and it is assumed that they would just as readily use those weapons on anyone else standing in their way. These parties seek the ultimate power: the control of the entire earth sphere, and the right to declare who lives and who does not have the right to live among humankind."

The silence was somewhat unbecoming of the crowd, Durandal figured. Raging against Blue Cosmos was a favored pastime of both the civilians and the military of ZAFT, but their quiet was also respectful of the named party. "Armory One stands as ZAFT's pledge to Mendel, Copernicus and Orb, that we shall stand to the last against oppression and mass murder that would be visited upon our neighbors and comrades. It stands as gatekeeper to the L4 colonies, the homeland of Mendel and the millions of persons who would seek refuge among the Magi. Armory One stands in defiance of the genocide attempted before, and in defiance of the repeat of nightmares we have already suffered. Armory One will be our outpost in space, from where we will prepare men and materials for the eventual leap to the stars, and for where we will prepare for any eventuality on the planet below."

"The Magi have an old saying, a study in religious duality if one ever seen, that truly marks the spirit of Armory One. It goes as such: 'I pray to the Fates that if I must use my skills of war, that I use them swiftly and effectively, and that I return home thereafter. I then pray to God that I never have to use my skills for war, for the price will be too terrible to behold.' This is the truth that I believe is the spirit of Armory One, and this is the spirit I beseech you all to uphold in coming months and years."

The clapping and cheering marking the end of his speech was the loudest of all, and was echoed by many around the world. Still others shrugged off his speech, themselves unconcerned with the machinations of those in space.

A few fumed at the principle highlighted in the speech, and fumed at being called out by the 'arrogant inhumans' on their tactics and motives. It would be they who vindicated the last stanza of his speech, but not in the way they expected.

-x0x0x-

(16 July C.E. 72, 1600 UTC)  
>(Dropship <em>Sailboat Reborn<em>, Mendel Civilian Dock area)

The first thing waiting for the _Sailboat Reborn_ was an Ophanim MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) vehicle. The Captain had radioed ahead that she had four medical evacuations waiting for extraction, all four cases of hypercapnea (carbon dioxide poisoning). One was reported as conscious but clearly disoriented at discovery, three reported unconscious with one regaining consciousness since the discovery of the incident.

"This one doesn't sound all that good, but it could be far worse," the master Medtech for the vehicle declared, looking over the IVIS (1) report of the incoming cases.

"It's nowhere near the usual battlefield trauma we've trained to deal with, but I'll take a couple kids with CO-2 poisoning over a 20mm gunshot wound any bloody day of the week," one of the junior MedTechs said with a clear sigh to tone.

"Seyla, sister," (2) one of the nurses responded.

"Dropship is linking now, thirty seconds to soft-seal," the driver read off the IVIS panel up front and announced on the vehicle intercom. "First things through the dock bridge should be our rescues. Once they are loaded, we move."

"Grouchy bastard, today," the head nurse for the vehicle commented.

"Did he not get enough coffee this morning?" the senior MedTech asked.

"Must not have," the vehicle loadmaster said.

"Oh I got my morning ration of coffee and not a drop more, that's why I'm grouchy. Want I should shove my coffee mug up your butt far enough for your soul to verify it's been used today?" The driver asked with significant frustration to voice.

"Definitely not a good day," the head nurse commented dryly.

"Must be the lack of the good shit," a junior MedTech declared. "The good blends of coffee are all manufactured and sold from areas controlled by those dastardly Earth Alliance asshats. Of course they won't sell to us, so..."

"They wait long enough, coffee deprivation will set us to infighting, which will make their job easier by default. Or we'll get over the coffee addiction, one of the two," the senior MedTech declared coldly.

"Incoming," the loadmaster said as four stretchers were carried their way from the dropship loading tunnel.

"Look alive, people!" the senior MedTech said as he dropped his cigarette and stomped it to snuff the flame.

"Four for you," the lead stretcher-bearer said. "All four are stable, but only two have regained consciousness yet."

"Jesus, must have been some serious exposure," a junior MedTech commented. "We'll do beds 1, 3, 5, and 7 for ease of transport," she directed the four litters to the available mobile-operations wards inside the MASH bay of the Ophanim.

-x-

For Rita Daniels, the movement was surreal almost to the point of a hallucinogen trip. She intellectually knew something was physically wrong with her, but she could not guess what it was in her fogged and disoriented state. She only knew that she wanted to get to Mendel and avoid anything Blue Cosmos; how the world was constantly jolting and spinning was disorienting to her to the point of nausea; a particularly rough jolt upset her past her limit; she turned her head to the side and spewed, for what she guessed was at least the third time since she woke up. She did not know that the personnel she was with had anticipated this and had a bucket waiting for it.

The movement ceased for a few moments as activity continued around her. She could see blurs in the grayed vision she still held, she could hear bare snippets of muted sounds around her but could understand none of what she was hearing. She could feel the stiffness of the bed she was now on, but could determine nothing about it or her environment.

Rita was one of those rare cursed beings in Existence who were sentenced to a life of torment by the sound of running electronics. Since she was young, Rita could easily hear the refresh whine of CRT monitors running, a very-high pitch buzzing sound that most persons could never hear. The sound of an electric vacuum motor gave her headaches, to the point that she had to wear firearm-rated hearing protection when her mother did the Saturday morning housecleaning to prevent the headache. Thus, when the new sound of an electric motor came to her, this one was an instant headache-producing sound as well as loud enough to outstrip any vacuum cleaner she had ever heard. She could tell it was below her, with a few similar motors below her and to the right, but more than that she could not tell.

Her body moved in response to inertial forces, something to which she guessed she was moving inside a vehicle now and a large one at that (easily larger than the school buses she was used to riding in or the family truck). The motion wasn't extremely bad, but for her nausea it wasn't any measure of help. Thankfully, it didn't last more than a few minutes before the vehicle came to a stop and the electric motors shut down, which stopped amplifying her headache and her nausea.

More movement, more voices, and more random noises. She thought she had been removed from one enclosed space to open air, then taken into a large echo chamber of some kind. That did not last long before she was in some kind of a room with a lot of beeping electronics. The movement stopped, started again, then stopped again; this time she could feel she was on a soft surface of some kind, and something touching her face, but other than that she could only guess she was in some kind of electronics room?

-x-

"Hypercarbia," the resident physician assigned to their care read off their charts. "Invidious. How did they come to suffer such on a dropship? I've seen their filtration and recycling systems, the scrubbers on a _Guild II_ can handle upwards of 6,000 people without significant modification."

"They locked themselves in a steel box inside a steel box, with inadequate ventilation and atmospheric scrubbers," the Ophanim crew chief said. "Or, at least it would have been adequate if they had jury-rigged the atmospheric scrubbers correctly. That's the trouble with greenhorn canker mechanics, though: brave enough to try, too green to get it right."

"Erm, can you fly that by me again?" the resident said.

"They were stowaways, they built a secured hide inside a freight container out of one-centimeter steel, loaded it with supplies and sealed themselves in. It would have been enough to get them here, to Mendel, without issue, except for the loss of their atmospheric scrubbers. Thankfully, a trainee loadmaster on the ship heard their SOS and was able to get timely rescue efforts in place." The loadmaster made to light a cigarette, but his lighter was quickly snatched by the resident doctor. "What? Gimme back my lighter, amigo," he requested somewhat archly.

"Only if you put it away," the doctor replied just as archly. "This is a hospital, and these four are on fifty-fifty oxygen. You strike that lighter and this room becomes an open-air pavilion rather explosively."

"Oh, shit! Didn't think about that," he admitted.

"Clearly so," the doc rebuffed him. "Thankfully, the three were just barely past the unconsciousness stage, and the fourth was only disoriented. A day or two in here should bleed out the excess carbon dioxide and they should be uninjured. You can rest assured this story will end with a happy note."

"Damn little of that nowadays," the loadmaster agreed. "Well, anything you need from me?"

"How about you kick that smoking habit?" the doctor said.

"Eh, helps me concentrate," he replied dismissively as a dodge.

"You say so," the resident replied with a tone that clearly said he wasn't buying that line of bullshit.

"They're yours, Doc. Good luck and godspeed." Without another word, the loadmaster was out the door and headed back to his vehicle.

The doctor picked up his voice recorder and switched it on. "16 July CE 72, 1630 hours. GARM medical ward, block 3. Four patients, all early teens, all female, all four suffering differing degrees of Hypercarbia. Blood tests for CO-2 saturation are in the works at this time. Inquiry needed for three being unconscious and one not; what is the differing factor and what was the maximum saturation this could have happened at. Also check for blood acidosis due to built-up carbon dioxide in bloodstream."

-x-x-x-

(17 July CE 72, 0600 Hours Lima)  
>(Equatorial Union, Equatorial Spaceport)<p>

"Four to the left, suppressing fire!" Captain Tunke ordered of his men. Like the professional soldiers they were, a light machine gun broke off from the main base of fire, swiveled, and took under fire the attempted flanking of his position. Short bursts of 6mm rifle rounds went downrange in two-round and three-round groups, with at least one of the foes crumpling under fire and one other injured; all four dropped to the deck and turned to bring fire on him, but without having gone far enough left they were still shooting up his 'front' and not accomplishing much.

"Frag out!" The unit 'nader shouted after he tossed a grenade in the direction of the enemy. Much to his credit, the grenade landed and detonated almost a half-second after it hit the dirt, and his aim was dead-on in landing among the advancing rebels / terrorists / unidentified aggressors / hairdressers / something-or-other. The Starport Militia had no clue who these aggressors were, but they knew they meant business.

A visual-launch Milan AT missile was fired from down the line, where his main anti-armor platoon was sited for a good field of fire against the enemy center. The missile tracked to the foremost APC (old American M113 APCs, sometimes called 'breadboxes on tracks') and detonated on the front of the machine. The remaining propellant fireballed when aggravated by the shape charge inside the missile, but it did its damage by throwing spall around on the inside of the machine. True to reasonable expectation, the missile blew a five-inch hole in the front armor of the APC and had blown the rear doors open from the pressure wave; anything in between the front and the back had probably been reduced to red paste and bone fragments by the shrapnel inside.

The defensive forces Captain quickly took stock of his own positions, and nodded a reserved approval. His men were professionals, pulled from the Equatorial Aribrone troops to guard the now-critical Starport and facilities against any attack. Their positions, tenchworks and revetments, were in excess of 'by the book', they approached impossible to crack for green troops as these mystery attackers were proving. The enemy was eager and well-motivated, but 'unevenly led' in military parlance, which was code-phrase for their asshat commander should not have the right to command troops in the field. He had announced his attack about forty minutes early with a flare, then marched right into the teeth of the defenses. Captain Tunke figured that was the measure of terrorists: some were smart, most were vicious, most had cunning, but not all were well-enough trained or intelligent enough to do anything more than creatively place bombs for maximum civilian casualties.

"More on the right! Fast movers!" the call came across the radio; before the Captain could even look at the oncoming unit, the sound of jeep engines and heavy machine guns made the matter crystal clear. These were answered by 40mm grenade launchers and heavy machine guns of their own; two of the six jeeps survived their first pass, the other four bought it from rifle hits to the driver or in one case a 40mm grenade to the side of the vehicle shredded the tires and caused it to flip on the side without rubber to support it.

"What the hell is that sound?" the Captain's radio operator asked.

"They stopped!" someone shouted. All the vehicles had stopped in their tracks, with the larger ZSU-23-4 anti-aircraft / anti-personnel self-propelled machine cannon units pointing up into the sky. A few with heavier rifles aimed them at the descending object, a dropship, and opened fire. Less than a third of the infantry were firing into the sky, some even trying to hit the descending dropship with RPG fire, but few of the rockets could have even part of the range necessary to reach it. The large ZSU mobile anti-air guns were easily able to reach up to it, for what it was worth; the Captain saw the distinct telltales of rounds sparking off the side armor of the ship, even as his men continued to take their formation under fire.

"Milan teams! Focus on the ZSU guns! Silence them!" the Captain ordered.

"HOLY SHIT!" A Private shouted as he saw a line of tracers walk across the ground, through a patch of infantry (and sundered them from the impacts), then across the top of one of the four ZSU SPAAG (5) units. Two hits had been seen before the ZSU cooked off from an internal ammo feed strike, with the added visual bonus of seeing the turret go 'jack-in-the-box' in that it went airborne from the ammo explosion and started coming down after about 30 meters of upward travel.

-x-

(Dropship _GDS-20992151_, in landing pattern above Equatorial Spaceport)

"Say HELLO to my LITTLE FRIEND!" the gunnery officer for the aft-left bays shouted. The 105mm Rotary Autocannons he had been using spun down with a ratcheting sound audible in the bridge even though the cannons were nearly clear across the ship.

"I think they got the message, kiddo," the Captain said to the overeager teen at the station. "Equatorial, Dropship, how close do your boys want their fire support?" Since the enemy (whoever they were) had fired on a dropship, they were considered fair game for the dropship crew and arsenal, and that wasn't even the biggest surprise the ship had in store today.

"As close as you can put it without fragging my men," Captain Tunke answered for the tower. "You are a sight for very sore eyes. Praise be to Allah and Mendel for your helping hand!"

"Gunners, give 'em hell as they appear in your gunsights," the Captain ordered.

His order didn't take long to be implemented. Within two seconds, the ERPPC weapons unleashed a blue-white ion bolt, four bolts into two APCs, with one unit simply stopped dead and one fragged out from some kind of internal explosion.

"Radar detected from a Crotale SAM system, it's weak but inside detection values," the commo officer said. "Look around heading 0-1-0 for it."

"Got it, target is in range of ATM extended range missiles. Launching now," one of the gunnery controllers declared. The Advanced Tactical Missile systems did not echo through the hull, but the monitors showed the two dozen missiles streak out in pairs for the targeted launcher system. Of 24 missiles, 6 missed and 18 hits tore the old Crotale launcher apart.

"Flight level seven, Captain," the helmswoman said.

"At FL 6, we unleash hell," he said as the monitors flared from the beams of Heavy Large Lasers headed down to the ground. All six beams missed a pair of APCs that were still trying to advance on the Equatorial front line, though two seconds later a pair of wire-guided AT missiles found one of the APCs and stopped it cold. "Area suppression weapons," he ordered.

"Still out of range, sir, the Streaks will not lock from up here," the FCO said. "Hold, I have targeting for the Streak-Six packs! Stand by!" After a pair of seconds, the targeting system reported a valid lock. "Firing!" All five packs of missiles unleashed in series, thirty missiles streaked down into the ground ahead of the Equatorial lines and into the oncoming enemy infantry. The dust from the missile blasts obscured most of the result, but the sight of flying arms and a rolling head told that the barrage had some manner of effect on the enemy.

"ATM Medium-range salvo out!" the ATM FCO half-shouted as he loosed a pack of missiles into a different section of the enemy lines. The effect was the same, but spread across a lesser amount of territory and with some missiles that scattered to no effect.

"Flight Level six, Captain," the helmswoman said.

The Captain picked up his growler phone and hit a quick-dial button. "Bay Five from Bridge, unleash hell."

-x-

Captain Tunke watched the dropship open its bay doors on the side facing the battle, a calculated risk for what he expected would be a drop operation. This dropship was scheduled to bring with it the new mercenary formation to protect the Spaceport and adjacent ICF Fusion power plant, though he didn't really care about the mercenaries so much as he loved the fire support given him already by the ship. Anything more than that would be just gravy in this opinion.

The 'gravy' was 'served' after the cargo bay door passed the 80 percent open mark. A strange unit thrusted clear of the door and immediately began sinking; five seconds later, a much larger unit did the same as the first but from the second door followed almost immediately by another 'smaller' unit coming from the first door (smaller relative to the larger unit, but easily larger than even ZAFT's vaunted Mobile Suits). A fourth launched from the second door, this one middle of the road in terms of size amongst the four, and it began its descent to the ground with rocket engine packs on its frame to prevent it splattering on the ground.

"Base of fire right! Keep them suppressed, help is on the way down!" To accentuate his point, another group of missiles slammed into the ground with startling thunder and shockwave, each missile tearing rents in the grounds and most missiles killing one or more of the foe.

"Just a little more! Missiles on the last of the BTR vehicles!" his Lieutenant on the AT platoon ordered.

"Almost got 'em!" a Milan missile went out to another of the ZSU-23-4 _Shilka_ SPAAG, though the fourth of the _Shilka_ put paid to the last squad of the AT platoon with a burst of 23mm HE-T rounds. The Captain looked away from where his personnel were for a moment, shook his head to clear the sight of his men being mulched, then grabbed for an old LAWS to use on the last of the SPAAG and hopefully turn the tide of the battle. He went through the procedure of arming it, first with the trigger cover, then the arming pin, then the sights, and he was ready to fire.

The rocket blew out of the LAWS tube with the sound of several shotgun blasts, just as it always did. The short range to the target (450 meters) lent itself to a very short flight time, and the rocket arrived to the target object intact. On impact, the 87mm rocket glanced off the left side of his turret and spiraled out of control, eventually to land on the ground and sputter there for a minute. Before the Captain could even issue a decent curse for the faulty fuse, his heart stopped when the ZSU swiveled its turret to face his position.

He stared down the four barrels of infantry and aircraft-shredding death for the barest of moments, before a pair of ruby-red lasers struck the top of the machine and blew clear through the bottom of it. It took a fraction of a second, but the confined ammunition inside began to crackle and eventually caused the turret to flip off the old modified tank chassis lazily; without all the ammunition cooking in a group, the turret would not take a flight as had the earlier one. The ammunition continued to cook as the tank's innards burned, sounding something of popcorn cooking and visually looking like fireworks.

The ground shook to the impact of four distinct sets of Omnimech legs striking the ground. The Captain looked back and up to the four machines as each ejected the drop cradles that slowed their descent from the dropship. Four Omnimechs, four sets of guns well in advance of any weapons available to the scratch-up assaulters. The arrival of reinforcements had destroyed the attacker's resolve; without further word, the remaining troops (the scant few that had survived their botched assault) turned and began running in the opposite direction of the Omnimechs.

"Captain, Ace Six reporting, do you want us to chase?" the lead Omnimech Pilot asked.

"Negative," Captain Tunke said. "If you have to, do some target practice on their retreating forms, but do not pursue."

"You heard the man, target practice time," the lead Omnimech Pilot declared. "Let's motivate these asshats to not come back, boys."

The Omnimechs lined up in row, four machines with fresh paint and no battle damage. A poor sod terrorist turned and snapped off a shot with a RPG at the largest of the machines, though the missile passed between its legs and disappeared in a puff in the fusion engine exhaust of the descending dropship. Without any audible command, each of the pilots began singling out the enemy infantry for ministrations, a laser here, a pulse of lasers there, a quad of large and fast-moving missiles from the smallest of the 'mechs rent holes in their already ragged and decimated formation.

The most curious weapon of their arsenal was some form of a ballistic weapon that fired with such velocity that the projectiles glowed white-hot in transit from air resistance. The guns in question fired in bursts of twenty rounds (at a guess – the fire rate was so rapid he could not properly count), and sounded like nothing so much as an old Metalstorm weapon system. Walking a burst of said weapon across a platoon was guaranteed to kill at least two squads of their rank, and almost assuredly took part of a third squad with it; the sheer savagery of it turned his stomach, but his will was tempered by the burning trucks, forklifts, tugs, and baggage cars left in the rebel's wake. Men and women, some teens, all slain because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The fire continued for several more minutes, as every man in their ranks ran hard north and away from the starport. After the enemy was outside engagement range of all but the largest lasers on the 'mechs, Tunke called it. "Omnimechs, cease fire, enemy is thoroughly routed. We have won," he declared in a cold voice.

The cease-fire order only took two seconds to be implemented. After a few moments of the Omnimechs swiveling back and forth in search of more targets, they lowered their machine's arms and appeared to slacken in posture somewhat. "Bit late to say so, but mercenary formation Aces High is reporting for duty, Captain Tunke," the lead pilot said. "Star Commander Fritz Wernke, at your service."

"Extremely good timing, Captain. Welcome to the Equatorial Union," the Captain of the Starport Guard declared.

-x-x-x-

(22 July C.E. 72, 0945 UTC)  
>(Mendel Administration Building, Floor 10, office of the Century Commander, Mendel Colony)<p>

Century Commander Gerald Lightbringer figured the nerves and semi-panicky reactions of the four kids was a given. After all, the Earth Alliance equivalent to going before the Century Commander was to go before the Vice President of the Atlantic Federation. Only with a lot more power and a lot less procedural restraint, at least in the case of Mendel. Gerald liked having a street reputation that scared people shitless, it made them more cooperative if he had to squeeze someone.

"Please, be seated," Gerald said as he continued reading the medical reports for the four kids. He had read through their personal information already, as well as read through the very thorough debriefs of the dropship personnel, all of whom had reported favorably on the sneakiness and thorough planning of the kids in terms of preparation, stockpiling, and planning involved in this stowaway escapade.

After a few minutes of silent reading, the young natural girl asked the inevitable question: "Sir, are we in trouble?"

"Yes and no," Gerald answered. "I'll explain here in a moment, I want to make sure I've read this thoroughly before we get down to details."

He could sense the trepidation in the four caused by his answer, which he considered a good thing. Even as a valid escape plan, this one had been both supremely risky and supremely daring. Ultimately it was successful, but the chances the kids had taken were massive, and any amount of eventualities could have resulted in four dead bodies instead of four refugee immigrants.

After another two minutes of reading, he set the folder down. "My apologies for the delay, I have been briefed in on your tale but not to this degree," and he waved the folder in their direction. "Now, the first thing I want to ask before we continue: why take such an outlandish method of transport to get here? A passenger train would have been far simpler, and air service from KLAX (3) to ORON (4) to the Gigafloat would have been a helluva lot faster."

"Stealth, sir, and lack of funds," Veruna, the eldest of the three Coordinator sisters said. "We did what we did because we didn't want anyone to know how we were going to get there. We also, erm, had to creatively manipulate the Allster Enterprises systems to secure transport to the shipping port and from there to the Gigafloat, without it looking suspicious to you, Orb, or the Junk Guild."

"Toasters," the Century Commander replied, having already read the manifest of what their stowaway box was supposed to be. "So, you are saying that you converted a shipping container to have a central partition where you hid, stocked it for a two-month journey, then hacked the Allster Enterprises transport system so they thought it was a shipping unit of toaster ovens that needed to come to Mendel?"

"Yes, sir," the fourteen-year-old Coordinator kid said. Gerald remembered her name as Leiley.

"And what about your parents?" he asked.

"Our father and mother helped us prepare the container and stock it. They wanted us out of the Earth Alliance territory. Diane's parents, well..." her sentence trailed off.

Diane, the youngest of the occupants and the only natural among the four, spoke next. "My parents are Blue Cosmos. I'm not, I want no part of Blue Cosmos, I used to get beat for sympathizing with Coordinators, and I don't want any part of it anymore."

"_Madre de Dios_," Gerald groaned. "Well, if I wanted the easy ones, I'd still be a Star Captain," he griped in a nonhuman language.

"Sir?" Gina asked, wondering what he said.

"Disregard, just an old lament of mine," he said in English. "Now, given that all four of you are over the age of twelve, I am required to inform you that you are considered above the age of majority and therefore are legally responsible to your actions. That being said, by your own admission in these reports and before me, I count; illegal entry, illegal passage on a civilian transport, falsification of civilian transport manifests, hacking of a foreign commercial or industrial entity, hacking of a foreign financial entity, hacking of a foreign transportation network, possession and transport of a firearm in an unsafe manner, and possibly kidnapping, depending on what Diana's parents have to say about it. Now, any of you care to comment on these charges?"

The four looked among each other and shrugged. They knew this was likely to happen. "Sir, if we were given the opportunity to do this again, we would do it again, and again, and again, until we actually made it here in one piece or died trying."

"It was only a matter of time before someone found out we were Coordinators, so we were living on borrowed time, Century Commander," the middle-age Coordinator said. "I thought Mendel was supposed to be the new land of the free and disenfranchised, sir. Or has that changed in the past three weeks?"

"Neg, it is still quite true," Gerald replied with a smile. "I take it the four of you are sticking to your requests for refugee status?"

"Yes!" all four half-shouted in response.

"Very well," Gerald replied evenly. "I hereby issue summary judgment. For the three Daniels children, Rita, Leiley, Veruna, I hereby grant your requests for refugee status and issue authorization for asylum in the Magi Protectorate of Mendel. Veruna, as the eldest of the persons in this party, you are hereby declared faultless of all crimes in pertaining to the exfiltration of a terrorist state except the charge of possession and transportation of a firearm in an unsafe manner. Even given your circumstances, you should have practiced better firearm handling and transport."

"Sir," she replied stoically.

"Diana Trimes, I hereby authorize your request for refugee status under a separate declaration due to the differing circumstances of your refugee request. Additionally, I hereby submit the contents of your diaries and your medical examination records as evidence of the physical abuse inflicted upon your person which has led to your seeking asylum among the Magi." Though the written word could be considered one thing and ultimately could be considered easily falsified, the use of x-rays to catalog her injuries that resulted in fractured bones and the occasional actual broken bone corroborated her tales in writing. If her parents came looking, Gerald, Gerald's commanding officer (Star Admiral Wayne Centara), and eventually (possibly) Division Commander Gerard Caecilius (the uberofficer of all Multimage mobile and naval forces) would use that evidence as plenty of reason not to have her deported back to the Earth Alliance.

"Sir," she replied evenly, tearing up at the thought that she had won her refugee status

"As of right now, the four of you are considered inducted persons into the Magi Protectorate of Mendel. Given that all of you are considered of majority, but of no capable means of income or verification at present, you are hereby transferred to the ward of the GARM Research Facility Civilian Creche until such a time as you are deemed fit for independent citizenship."

"YES!" all four shouted as they realized their nightmare was over and they were now free persons in the Magi territory.

"GARM is a heavily-guarded medical and eugenic research facility. You will be at no risk of being abducted or harmed by hostile persons while in their care, and your placement there will only be as long as it takes you to complete your formal education minimum requirements. After that, you are free to conduct yourselves as you see fit. My personal recommendation: our second colony is online and filling up right now, so I suggest you complete your education verification and grab a transport over there. Someone will have a job for you without question."

"And my offense, sir?" Veruna asked.

"You will have a simple two-part assignment for your lack of experience in handling firearms. First, you are hereby ordered to take the Civilian Small Arms Safety and Training courses available, from pistol to light machine gun and everything in between," Gerald ordered. It was a common 'punishment' for persons who were new to firearms, at least among the Magi. The combined courses would give her a crash course in proper safety and handling of just about every street-common firearm class she was likely to encounter, and would severely reduce her risks of accidents. "The combined courses should take you about 30 hours. Your creche leader will help you schedule the courses, and may even be able to have the courses taught to you there at GARM by one of the Marines."

"Understood, sir," she replied immediately, clearly exhilarated that she was receiving a very light punishment for it.

"Second, I will not release a statement that you are in Mendel as refugees, which should still leave open the question of your whereabouts. As is described in your reports, your actions for preparing the container and hacking the Allster Enterprises networks do not show anything traceable to your parents, so that cannot be used as a lead to track you down. Therefore, you will take a ride on the dropship _Forrestal_ as it does another debris run, and you will put those hacking skills to good use. You are going to hack your parents a route from their homes to the Gigafloat, and we will arrange transport for them up here, where they can establish residence as refugees as well."

"Sir?" she asked, clearly shocked at such an order.

"You have a skillset that Mendel – neg, the Magi as a whole – comes up short on. We have the ability to break comm encryption with ease, but our ability to do classic hacks like you did in execution of your escape is sub-par at best," Gerald admitted, which was not a stunning revelation to anyone. "I am now offering you two things: one, an opportunity to hack your parents a path to freedom for themselves. Two, I would offer you a challenge to see if you can possibly turn those skills to use for the Protectorate. If you can get people clear now, you can get people clear in the future, you can probably get people in, or you can cause all manner of chaos and disruption "

Veruna was silent for a long moment. "I will certainly take up your offer to free my parents. On the other matter, can I defer for now?"

"No rush," Gerald replied smoothly. "You have to pass your minimum education standards before I can officially offer you such a tasking. Just do not speak of such an offer to anyone else, no sense tipping the hat before the fun begins."

"Understood," and she looked down the line to the others in the group. "You heard him, say nothing of this."

"Will do," Diana replied evenly; the others simply nodded their response.

"Diana, because I cannot hide your status behind a classified operation, I am legally required to report your residence and status to your parents. They will know and they may come looking for you. I will include in the report that you were found alone as a stowaway on one of the cargo dropships, to further the ends of rescuing their parents. If they do come looking, I have ways of preventing them from reclaiming you, but realize that it may come down to a shouting match – or worse."

"Understood, sir," Diana said. "Please don't hurt them, but I don't want to go back."

"The Multimage Empire holds honor and principle above all else. It would be a dishonor beyond compare to turn away an abused teen trying to escape a terrorist state."

_**-x-x-x-**_

(3 June SL2-12, 1030 hours Terran Standard Time)  
>(Multimage Reference Dimension 0 (Home Dimension))<br>(Office of the Empress of the Multimage Star Empire, Multimage Administration Building, Terra 02)  
>(Two days after the attack on the <em>Mjolnr<em>)

"Okay, okay, okay! I surrender!" The Empress snorted at her subordinate's response to being badgered with inordinate facts to trump his operational desire. "Damn it to hell, Hotaru, what do you expect? They're our guys, and Gerald Lightbringer is an old friend of mine. You want we should give up on them?"

"I did not say that!" Hotaru – officially, Executor-Princess Hotaru Tomoe of the Star League – snapped back at the Magi Division Commander of Commandos. "I did not tell you to abandon hope, nor would I say that. I know _exactly_ where they are."

"Then we go to get them—"

"No, we do _not_," Hotaru snapped again.

"Stan, stand down," the Empress ordered, finally grown wearied of the arguing between one of her subordinates and her oldest friend. "Hotaru, walk us through this. You are seeing something here that we are not, and all things considered we need to know before we decide what we are doing to solve this problem – if anything, Stan." The last part wasn't so much a decision as it was a warning shot at her direct subordinate.

Unfortunately, if a Master Executor said it would not be done, Empress Atrebas was honor-bound not to do it by way of treaty obligations and dissuaded not to do it by sheer threat. Executors were the elite of wizards and soldiers throughout existence – neutral, impartial (in theory if not in practice), and commanding of power far beyond the wildest dreams of mortal man. Rini Atrebas had little doubt that she would be soundly defeated by the Executor-Princess / Master Executor standing before her desk, if the matter came to blows.

"Aff, Empress Atrebas," Stan ground out through clenched teeth in response to her warning. Rini paid it no heed, since this was less about operational necessity than it was about the propriety of the matter. Stan did tend to get 'worked up' about 'his territory' and in most cases it helped, but in this case it was only delaying the inevitable.

"Okay, I'll be completely up front with this; I know exactly where they are, in time, space, and dimension. When and where the _Mjolnr_ landed has created an echo in Existence so loud that no being attuned to fate can ignore it."

Stan's face went ashen; such changes had happened in the past, but they were of such monumental scale (or such monumental fuck-ups) that a significant amount of Executors were required to clean up the mess. Two such changes were at his hands; that he survived the repercussions of such changes was only on the dint of his old comrade (and former commanding officer) Eric Atrebas saving his arse from the courts martial involved. Executors were not particularly famous for being merciful to those who created such massive problems, Stan reminded himself.

"Okay, what's the big deal?" Rini asked fairly.

"It's where and when that is the big deal," Hotaru replied. "May I use the whiteboard, Rini?"

"Erase what's up there if you need the space," Empress Atrebas replied. She already had all the figures appended to the necessary documents and notes, so the monthly budget figures could go away.

"Okay, let's cut back to basics," Hotaru said, then drew a circle on the whiteboard. "You've all heard this one before, this circle represents the theory of Existence, ergo everything that can be, will be somewhere in this circle."

"Infinite parallels theorem," the silent one of the four persons in the room declared. "Every fourth-grader in the Empire knows that one. So, what's so special about it this time around?" Division Commander Gerard Caecilius asked politely. To him, the ongoing argument was as much entertainment value as it was policy decision.

"The problem is said theory is incomplete," Hotaru replied. "And we've all known it was incomplete for over fifteen millennia this planet's time, and nobody has bothered rectifying the theory."

"Okay, where did we leave off?" Stan asked.

"The circle represents all of the possibilities, but, and I stress the BUT here, the circle of infinite parallels does not account for repeats of those parallels or variances exactly like the existence of cross-dimensional Star Empires."

"No way," Stan replied immediately. "All of that could fit inside the circle, could it not?"

"No, it can't," Hotaru replied diffidently. "Otherwise, you would have encountered a repeat of the Multimage Empire by now."

Stan's mouth flapped open soundlessly for four seconds. "Close that hatch, comrade, or a fly might use your tongue for a landing strip," Gerard commented with some humor.

Before Stan even registered what was said, a fly did enter his mouth, but never made it out before he closed his mouth and swallowed it. "Bleh, typical housefly. Better than grubs but not by much," Stan commented, reminding everyone in the room that he was a survival expert like the bulk of the Commandos. "Okay, on the premise that we haven't encountered another Multimage Empire, you are now saying that the circle is divided further than we typically expect?"

"Yes," Hotaru replied. "It can be represented in many ways, but for our purposes we'll mod it into a cylinder." She drew the outline of a cylinder added onto the circle, then drew a line in the center of the cylinder. "This line represents where we are, one parallel dimension among infinite repeats both horizontally and vertically." She drew two more spokes to encapsulate their location in a small wedge that barely covered 1:30 to 2:30 on a clock, but still on the same plane inside the cylinder. "This wedge represents all of known Existence as far as we know of it – and by 'we' I mean the Executors, not just the Star Empires. The Star League operates clandestine in a territory nine times larger than the six Star Empires combined."

"Ouch," Gerard groused. For all that he kept thinking the Magi were finally getting ahead of the game, they were one-upped by the 'impartial referees' of the Star League. And all this from a mere 1.9 million Executors, hardly the population of a decent city. "Definitely makes me feel small and insignificant in bed."

"Leave the 'in bed' jokes for the fortune cookies, please," Rini requested. Every week, the 'in bed' addendum joke rotated from one Division Commander to the next, and this week it was Gerard's turn.

"Aff, Empress," Division Commander Caecilius replied solemnly.

"Okay, for the sake of cutting straight to the point, the _Mjolnr_ landed here," and Hotaru drew another thin spoke, this one at the '10' position on the clock and significantly below the level of the Magi's home dimension in the vertical axis of the cylinder.

"Okay, no big deal, right?" Stan asked. "Jumping from 2 o'clock to 10 o'clock and slightly 'down' shouldn't be that hard, right?"

"Wrong," Gerard replied. "The farther away from your zero-reference dimension, the greater the equations required to accurately put you in your target zone. Attempt to go far enough out of your way, and the equation becomes so complex that our hardware can't do the job, either from a computational standpoint or a jump modulation standpoint."

"Exactly," Hotaru replied. "Under the best hardware available right now, from right here you can get to 1 o'clock or 3 o'clock on this diagram, sure as hell not to 10 o'clock in one go. And that doesn't even cover the variance of up or down in the cylinder."

"So we're back to square one, then, no way to get to our guys."

"Stan, if you don't knock that shit off, I'll spare the Empress the trouble by shooting you myself," Gerard told him deadpan.

"Okay, okay, you win, I'll hold my tongue. Please continue, Lady Hotaru, I swear I won't interrupt again."

"You'll lose that rede (X) soon enough," Hotaru commented pensively. "Anyway, since we know where they are, it is possible to get to them and rescue them. However, in the long run I don't think we _want_ to rescue them."

"Uh, what?" Gerard asked, this time himself dumbfounded by the apparent callousness she was showing. "We're talking about a _Phalanx_-class ship, six monitors, thirty-plus Dropships, and about 30,000 personnel. Why would we _not_ want to rescue them, milady?"

"Three reasons." Hotaru held up one finger. "One, they will have integrated themselves into the local populous in such a fashion that fast-extricating them would create a very messy and very bloody power vacuum."

"I'll buy that," Stan said. "Within limits."

"Second," and a second finger came up. "By way of a stable time loop, it is already shown that we specifically did not extract the remaining personnel, though I cannot cover details."

"I'll want to verify that with your husband," Stan grumped, then realized he had indeed broke his oath.

Hotaru drove on with the third finger. "Three, and this is the big one, they are part of the equation of Ragnarok." She held up her hand to silence the immediate protest from both Division Commanders. "Allow me to continue, and you will understand why."

"Fuck this," Stan groused. "If you're content to just stand around doing nothing, I'll go find them and bring 'em home myself." Stan started for the door, but did not make it halfway.

"If you extract them, there will be no victory condition for Ragnarok," Hotaru declared coldly to the back of the Division Commander. "No victory condition means the two hundred thousand years you have lived is completely for naught, Stanythe Agrippa. Do you want to throw that away?"

Put that way, Division Commander Agrippa had no choice but to turn away from the door to the office and return to the discussion circle. "You win."

Hotaru sighed mightily. She disdained taking the hard way with the Magi, but sometimes they needed a little bit of 'sledgehammer' to get the message. "When I began this explanation, I said I knew where they were, in space, dimension and _time_. Time is the critical factor."

"The stable time loop," Gerard noted. The Executor simply nodded in response.

Hotaru erased part of the agriculture output figures to make room for the next segment. She drew a vertical line that only covered about 40 percent of the board's height, and capped the line off with two beads. "This line represents what I'll refer to as the history of the Multimage – the lower dot represents the birth of your grandfather," and Hotaru nodded to Rini. "The upper dot represents where we stand right now, with the intervening bar being the various histories we have written in various alternate dimensions." She next drew a line slightly above the upper dot. "This bar is the hard stop – the Days of Ragnarok we are fast approaching. Best case that is several months off. Worst case is four years; the longer it is dragged out, the less likely we can achieve any sort of victory condition."

"So you're saying the sooner we die, the better off we all are?" Stan asked. "Starting to sound like a Spartan."

"Unfortunately, he is right," Hotaru shrugged. "I digress. Anyway, in terms of temporal location, the _Mjolnr_ is right here," and Hotaru added a dot down at the bottom edge of the whiteboard, parallel to the original line but as far away from the end line as possible. "The _Mjolnr_, your friend Gerald Lightbringer, landed sixteen thousand, one hundred and fifty one years before the birth of Eric Atrebas. For them to be parallel to where we stand now, thirty-two thousand, seven hundred seventy four years will have to elapse parallel to this dimension's time." As she said so, she drew a vertical bar up to the end of days line, then capped it off in the same fashion.

"Holy shit, I see now why you say leave 'em in place. It's like doing the history of the Multimage Empire three times: once for what they've lived through already and twice more for the fun of it," Gerard Caecilius said.

"As a gross oversimplification, yes," Hotaru commented.

"Time never matches one-for-one between dimensions," Stan pointed our fairly. "What's the variance?"

Though the exact number was usually counted by way of timing pulses from the HPG Network, everyone in the room knew that Hotaru would already know. Her dominion was time and fate itself; she would have easy access to that information. "The factor is 2.21. For they, seventy-two thousand years will pass before they are parallel to where we stand."

Everyone was silent for nearly a minute. The three Magi looked back and forth among each other, but there was no solace in each other's eyes compared to the sheer cruelty of what Hotaru had just declared. "So, they live the span of the Empire four and a half times plus one for the span they have already brought with them?"

"Yes," Hotaru replied in a clipped fashion.

"Asking them to do that is almost barbaric in and of itself," Empress Rini commented. "Must this be done?"

"Yes," Hotaru replied in the same clipped fashion. "There is no other way. The confluence of events and locations given to us by Fate with this incident is the only viable answer to Ragnarok. I don't like it; with this action I am consigning multiple parallels to a long and very bloody existence, and eventual destruction just the same as us, but there is no other way. Nobody in this room wants to see the whole of Existence, the whole of our lives and histories, annihilated by the coming darkness. Something has to be done, and this is the only workable 'something' on that list."

Gerard had the sum of the day's thoughts: "If something, anything, is to survive the great Cluster at the end of this road, it has to be done," he steeled himself.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Chapter Afterword<strong>:

The past is written, and now comes the future.

I'm not one for doing recaps. I wrote the Jokers Wild Set 1 for a reason; it is hard to distill such a lengthy story into something cohesive, short, and poignant. Besides, of all the great sins of SEED and Destiny, the sheer amount of recap episodes is highest on the list. One is acceptable, maybe, especially if it is interspersed with actual plot bits; more than that is just a travesty, and a whole DVD worth of recaps (spread throughout the Destiny series) is pushing it. So, I won't bore you with filler crap; what you read above is the real deal.

The meat of the chapter is the fun part. You see one of four keystones of the oncoming future in play here. Yes, it is a sad thing to say, but the fate of nations turns on such a perverse axis as to be determined by the fates of a bunch of young teen girls. The fates of nations turns on the perversity of internal security measures, all the more so that both security operations shown were perfectly legitimate operations. The fates of nations really can be swayed by a simple speech by one man. This is the perversity of real life, where things can change in an instant of spoken word.

Consider the battle scene shown in this chapter to be nothing more than a sample of what nightmares are to come. I kinda skated on the battle aspects in Set 1, but there will be no dodging some rather massive campaigning, at least if the dice do not compromise my plans this time around. My intention is to hit on every major point of warfare, from infantry action all the way to strategic nuclear war. You will need to watch the side story Dilemma of Flay Allster for some of the included types of battle; not everything can be included in the mainline, after all.

Note that the USSA did not get much in the way of props today; this was deliberate on my part, because the USSA is going to get some mad props in the next chapter. Ed Harrelson has a plan and he's sticking to it, for better or worse. Given the way things usually go in my writing, it will probably end up working for him, but it will be a messy solution to coming problems. I'll leave the 'what' up to your imagination for a day.

The last part I want to cover today is in pertaining to the last section of the chapter. At the end of Set 1, you saw a stinger by which Gerald Lightbringer's sister and an old friend of his went looking through the wreckage of the battle site. Division Commander Agrippa threatened to involve Executor Hotaru Tomoe in the search, and here at the end you see the beginnings of that result. Any of you versed in Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon should easily recognize the name, but as with everything else involved in the Multimage Chronicles the circumstances are different and the outcome is wildly different. Hotaru Tomoe is still somewhat the frail one of the Planetary Princesses, but don't let that fool you: at the point in the story shown here, she is almost 670,000 years old and is both a master wizard beyond all mortal compare and a skilled strategist in manipulating time and circumstances to her own designs. She carries with her at all times two relic weapons, powerful magic armaments of special purpose: her traditional Silence Glaive is known to be the most powerful weapon in existence for defeating defenses, as it can slice just about any other magic armor or any known nonmagical object in existence. Her other weapon is known as the Sword of Ragnarok; it has some combat utility, but its true purpose is to give the user the ability to see both forward in time and backward in time with absolute clarity, and the sword can gauge the effects of changes made on the fly, allowing a savvy and powerful user to manipulate the future as he or she sees fit. With these two weapons, she has worked almost incessantly on providing a solution to the war Ragnarok, and now may be her great chance to finally secure a way out, or so it appears.

More details on how this change will be made shall come in the next few chapters; for each of the next several chapters, there will be a stinger section showing the advancing plot and how it is intended to affect the future. Last time I did Flight, the appearance of first Hotaru and then reinforcements came off as something of a 'giant space flea from nowhere'. Circumstances will be wildly different from last time, trust me on that. The results will be at least as horrific, maybe worse; I've learned a lot in the years since I wrote the original Flight of the Jokers Wild, and I intend on putting it to good use.

And this is the end of the notes. Next chapter, I'll include a section detailing the complex give-and-take of the Star League and specifically the Executors of the Star League – they are high-level power-brokers and shocktroopers that can make or break entire Star Empires if pushed that far, and herein is no different. Keep one thing in mind, however: this scenario is playing out for a reason that is actually contrary to existing Star League policy. More will be explained on that front later.

NEXT UP: The USSA begins its latest round of maneuvering as progress continues in space on the Asgard Shipyard Station. The refugee kids begin settling into their new lives as Blue Cosmos targets a special asset of Mendel...

* * *

><p><strong>Review Replies<strong>: As this is the first chapter of Set 2 of the Jokers Wild, there are no prior reviews for this chapter. However, there are reviews for Chapter 20 of Set 1 (Legend of the Jokers Wild), so I will post the review here and also drop my reply.

**Rickrolled**: ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Very nice, a few good suprises along with some bad ones but really this chapter has made me look back and see all the stupid things people have died and killed for and i thank you for that. And so i only have to say thank you for provideing much needed reading and i look forward to your stories of the future. And just cause i can,

We're no strangers to love

You know the rules and so do I

A full commitment's what I'm thinking of

You wouldn't get this from any other guy

I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling

Gotta make you understand

Never gonna give you up,

Never gonna let you down,

Never gonna run around and desert you,

Never gonna make you cry,

Never gonna say goodbye,

Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

Sorry but i had to do that. Don't worry Strata is next :P

**REPLY**:

Well, it's official, I have been Rick-rolled Much thank you for that :) On a more serious note, it is good to see that my writing awakens someone to considerations and understanding on one of the great moral questions of war. I suggest you read onward, amigo, because I will definitely push the bounds of such an understanding in both directions, in this set and the coming sets of the Jokers Wild.

**Frasermage**: ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Hmm. If it WAS Blue Cosmos remnants who attacked Mjolnir and caused them to jump back in time... this would be weird.

Blue Cosmos after being screwed over by Mendel attempt to destroy the Mjolnir BEFORE they jump back in time... thus causing the damage that forced them to jump back... thus resulting in them being screwed over by Mendel...

Huh, I assume Vhen is going to be used as your viewpoint character for testing new Fighters and other hardware in the next story and showing them off in action?

**REPLY**: The thought you left about Blue Cosmos Remnants being the harbingers of their own destruction is a bit hilarious on the uptake. Now I have to make sure my version is just as strange, or self-destructive.

You got it. Vhen has a lot of flight time ahead of himself in coming stories.

**KnightOwl4183**: NOT posting his review for brevity reasons. It's freaking long and rambling.

Where to begin? I am assuming the complaint about foul language is in reference to the druggies? Hard to say, other than the fact that the Druggies had a bit of an overhaul when they were cleaned up.

The thing with the Lohengrins not backfeeding is actually good engineering practice: yes, they might blow up, you are dealing with anitmatter here, but electrical feedback should be prevented by a fail-safe circuit device, also known as a fuse or circuit breaker. Just common engineering sense.

On the Kira/Shinn rant and the Xenosaga/BT crossover ideas, I have no comment. As I explained in forum, not my place to comment on that.

**Alex / Takeshi Yamato**: ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Very fun chapter. :)

I did enjoy Alicia's battle, even though it wasn't much. I certainly hope that she gets more action in Set 2-and I also hope she manages to get a girlfriend soon (at the moment, I'd suggest Emily, the pilot of the Blossom, or possibly Wendy, the Magi survivor of that Trial, but that's up to you).

I also enjoyed the Trial of Possession-the result was unexpected, but still interesting. :)

And the stage is set for Joker's Wild, Set 2. I look forward to seeing how the Magi alter the events of Gundam SEED Destiny.

I look forward to the start of Set 2, as well as the next chapters of MultiMage Chronicles and Archangel's Amazing Adventures, and hope they all come soon. :D

Later! :D

PS: If you'd be willing to spare enough time to read, review, and possibly advertise a story I've posted here named "Mobile Suit Gundam Xenosaga Season 1", I'd really appreciate it. :D

**Reply**:

If I get a chance to read and review, I shall.

On Alicia, she will definitely get some action in the next set, she'll play a linchpin role in at least one battle and end up on an ace formation – I'll leave those details to your imagination at this time :)

Here is the start of JW2, and I suggest you start fearing the possibilities to come. It will be bloody well past the point of MMC or AAA. Economy of scale and all that.

**Necroblade**: ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Yaay Dearka..I think I said that before :D

I'm glad you changed the Natarle thing, it makes more sense to me this way. You got all of my points so I can't complain :D

I'm glad that you think I'm helping your writing with the critiquing. I have noticed that generally there are less and less grammar issues. The only major things I catch anymore are things you forget and the odd logic point.

Well I can tell that we're in for an interesting ride if nothing else :D

As usual you are right, but I think that Athrun still feels enough for his homeland to still go back. And Athrun's presence is a major plot element for the growth of the Minerva's crew. Especially the pilots. And I do like the Athrun Merylin pairing slightly more than Athrun and Cagalli, so you know what I'm hoping will happen. But whatever happens I trust you to make it interesting. And speaking of relationships I do like the little Kira and Lacus moment you put into the story. Since they never had any drama in the series we didn't really get to see how they intact as a couple.

I was actually in the process of writing a mail to ask if everything was ok since you hadn't sent the chappie back for round 2 when I realised you'd uploaded this :P Well I'll be waiting for the next chapter you send me :D

**Reply**:

Dearka will get some serious workout in Set 2...as well as get a workout as something of an 'official tech spy' for ZAFT in Mendel. Wait 'till you see those high-level machinations in play :)

There is no _think_ about it, comrade, your corrections and logic arguments are pushing me toward a better grammar and spelling foundation by the chapter. Of course, I'll probably always need a Beta to ensure I don't end up posting some sleep-deprived bullsj1tfest as a chapter, so...

I have my opinion on Athrun's conduct in Destiny when compared to his conduct in SEED. He walked into almost blatant operational manipulation and stayed there for about two-thirds of the series. In my opinion, his feelings for the PLANTs should have compelled him to stand against Durandal's wildly megalomaniacal operations far sooner than he did, because I saw clear hints of not just manipulation but three or four nasty agendas in his conduct even before Angel Down. Quite frankly, the second thing he did right in the series was attempt to flee with Meyrin; the first thing he did right was half-dump Cagalli for knifing him in the back with that arranged marriage bullshit. All that being said, however, both those points come at the cost of what should have been a character derail: I hope the Athrun of Ep 50 SEED is smart enough to see through Durandal's bullshit, because he even saw through his own father's psychosis and confronted him on it.

Sorry for the ranting, this is just one of those IJBM points from Destiny.

**Knives91**: ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Damn impressive, if saddening stuff. Mina bit the bullet huh? Man, at the rate their dropping, Angel squad is going to need new members to replace the lost ones. Though where they will get them is another matter entirely...

An amazing chapter. Keep at it!

**Reply**:

The Angel Team will be reconstituted, more than once in the course of the entire Jokers Wild epic. Expect it will get bloody quickly, but they are the aces: their duty is to prove themselves the best or die trying.

**General MG**: ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Did you introduced a Unicorn RX-0 in this chapter? If so, I like see how many you would field. As for Gundam 00's Solar Furnace technology, how are you going to introduce it in your director's cut Gundam Seed Destiny story? As for the whole story, great work.

**Reply**:

Actually, no, that was not a Unicorn Gundam. Unicorn was / is Alicia Yamato's callsign; the Magi have not encountered any of the UC Gundams post-CCA. Mendel, however, may be unlucky enough to encounter such devices...

On the Gundam 00 tech, I may or may not include it depending on how the later sets of the Jokers Wild progresses, and whether or not it is worth the time. After all, the existing dual-stage fusion reactors have something on the order of hundreds of megawatts or gigawatts of power output, and Gundam traditionally has a problem coming up with a full megawatt for engine power.

**EtienneOfTheWestWind**: ORIGINAL REVIEW:

It's an interesting stage you've set for the next part...

**Reply**:

And here stands the opening stanza of the next part. I hope this is ample evidence that the walls are closing in on the contestants, and that someone is going to have to leave the padded room...

* * *

><p><strong>The Gripe Sheet<strong>:

No standing gripes as of yet. If you see something amiss, shout it out!

* * *

><p><strong>Footnotes<strong>:

(0): For footnote 0, I was thinking about putting something witty here, but then I realized I could actually do something useful with it. So, I'll explain quickly about where I get the names and information on the Vocaloid / UTAUloid songs that will show up in the story from time to time. Some readers (those that speak Japanese) can get the intel straight from Nicovideo, but we poor English-only speakers have to get the leftovers that have been cross-ported to Youtube. So, there are probably even better songs than the ones I have listed here, but these are the best that I have come across thus far in my YT wanderings. I recommend you do a search as follows: (vocaloid name) (song name) for anything that you want to do further research on that I have mentioned here.

Be warned: the Vocaloids aren't going to be just music in the process of the Jokers Wild. It will be a long time down the road, but the Vocaloids will be taken to their logical conclusion and beyond by this nightmare. Along with a few other parties...

(1): **I**nter-**V**ehicle **I**nformation **S**ystem. Originally a United States technology for coordinating formations and sharing intelligence on the fly, the Magi use it for the same purposes as the US did (does IRL) but have added some extra functionality that allows for enhanced telemetry and coordination with all assets on the battlefield up to and including warships in orbit around the planet.

(2): **Seyla** is an old word absorbed from and carried over to the Magi from the Clans of Kerensky. In practice it is the equivalent of shouting 'Damn Straight' in reverential form.

(3): **KLAX** is the IATA airport code for Los Angeles International Airport

(4): **ORON** is the IATA-style airport code that I designated for Onogoro International Airport (Orb)

(5): **ZSU**-23-4 **S**elf-**P**ropelled **A**nti-**A**ir **G**un. ZSU units were the Soviet answer to NATO's love affair with helicopters, at least until the Apache hit the scene. They are of limited utility against actual aircraft, and by extension dropships and small craft in flight...until you try firing one at an assault dropship, that is.

(X): **Rede** is a solemn oath taken by a person in the presence of others. A term dating back to the Clans of Kerensky, the Magi have maintained its use over the years.


	2. Shadows That Move On Their Own

(Legend of the Jokers Wild, Set 2, Chapter 2: Shadows That Move On Their Own)

(24 July C.E. 72, 1400 Hours UTC)  
>(PLANT Aprilius One, ZAFT Eugenic Research Facility)<p>

"This is where revolutions start," Chairman Gilbert Durandal noted with plenty of irony for the subject. "Take a topic, extend it to its logical furthest advance, and structure an entire strategy around it. Would you not agree?"

"It is one way to force the issue," Star Admiral Wayne Centara nodded thoughtfully. "Of course, GARM R&D (1) has already garnered the attention of terrorists, though such actions did not end well for the assaulters."

"Indeed," Durandal noted with a hint of amusement. The story of the 'missing leg memorial' had made its way to the ZAFT Genetics research groups, who thought it was just as amusing as it was by the Mendel eugenics scientists. The tale also provided plenty of evidence that a eugenics program needed security – robust, well-armed security – to run a risk of operating without interference. "Though, I will admit that our policies may have a mitigating effect on terrorism in this area."

"True," Centara admitted. "On that note, I can do nothing. The rites of Immigration and Naturalization are ancient, reserved rights. Not even the Empress can change them. On the other hand, the cockroaches will check in, but they will not be checking out if they try playing their most dangerous game."

Both leaders were silent for a minute, watching the canister farm (2) as the technicians prepared for their second gestation group. The facility would have twelve staggered rotations, each rotation phase being nine months long, with a down-time of three months for each group of canisters. In three months, another gestation would be prepared and begin growing inside the artificial wombs. In this way, the facility would never slow down on the advancement of the genetic engineering program began with George Glenn, or technically began with the Clans of Kerensky long ago in a dimension far away, depending on one's frame of reference on the subject.

For Gilbert Durandal, the existence of the Magi, or more specifically the existence of Task Force Jokers Wild, had already nuked his Destiny Plan and scattered the ashes unto the winds. It would be impossible to set up a genetics-deterministic caste system when the preeminent naval and mobile warfare (space) power in the earth sphere would never submit to such a plan, and it would be foolhardy to even think loud about trying. After Gilbert's geneticist counterpart handed him the old manifesto and notebook of ideas for the plan, Gilbert sealed it and buried the thought behind it deep in his memories, never forgotten but never to be executed. Better to leave such a plan silent and all but forgotten, then to face the (extremely effective) guns of one party who would not submit to any such control.

The death of one plan became the birth of another, born from the cordial relationship between ZAFT and the Protectorate of Mendel. Where the Destiny Plan had been sunk by circumstance, the Magi had brought with themselves a second set of circumstances that could easily rewrite the future of humanity just as thoroughly as the Destiny Plan, and with less direct outlay of effort or risk of war. The secret (if one would dare to call it a secret) of such efforts rested in the canisters in front of the Star Admiral of the Mendel Protectorate, and unwittingly both Mendel and Orb were contributing to the advancement of Durandal's cause.

"How goes your first generation?" Wayne asked in the silence as Durandal considered his positions.

"So far, no losses," Durandal replied evenly. "Everything appears to be going as planned."

"Better than average," Wayne noted with a small hint of surprise. "We run around half a percent losses per year, slightly less than the natural birth fail rate."

"And Wilhelm said that three to five percent losses is expected for a fledgling program, so we are ahead of that curve," Durandal concluded the thought.

"How hard are you pushing it?" Wayne followed up the first series.

"Not really, nothing more than proof of concept right now, and probably for the next five rotations. We'll worry about pushing the envelope after we know it works."

Wayne nodded silently, well aware of the risks involved. "Going to expand?"

"Planning on it. We will double the facilities here in three years if everything works out to plan, and double it again in ten years if the second operation scales up properly."

"Not the most aggressive plan, but a solid one," Wayne said. "I take it you are planning on taking this technology to the stars?"

"Of course," Durandal admitted smoothly. It was no major surprise to anyone, least of all Wayne. "On that note, where stands your progress towards achieving Asgard?"

"We have the first _Garm_-class cargo monitor readied for move to the asteroid belt. Once we get out there, we can begin collecting the mineral wealth of the asteroids and shuttling them back here. We do the processing on the mining side, bring it back here for manufacturing, and ship the parts to you for assembly. Green Easter Corporation will move the parts to your side and help with the manufacture."

"And other resources?" Durandal asked, referring to resources not necessary for the jumpship projects.

"They will be made available at standard going rates," Wayne assured him. The rates in question were varied by the commodities markets, mainly the Orb Metals Exchange and Scandinavian Natural Resources Markets. Over the year the Magi had been in system, the salvage of the huge amounts of scrap in and around the Mendel colony had turned a tidy profit for the Magi and for other businesses involved, as opposed to the Junk Guild's usual gambling on high-tech usable components. Such salvage operations had also increased availability of resources and depressed prices to a significant degree, to the point that the Earth Alliance materials acquisition budget had a 40 percent surplus. Estimates were running in the order of 8 years to completely clear the debris belt, the penultimate goal of Mendel's salvage teams.

Again, both were silent for a minute as they watched the technicians do their hourly calibrated systems checks.

"How do you see this ending?" Durandal asked.

The bent of his question was obvious to Star Admiral Centara. "A long and inconclusive insurgent war with Blue Cosmos, something on the order of The Troubles that plagued Great Britain for almost a century."

"A century? Of this?" Durandal asked, a bit shocked by Wayne's conclusion.

"We do what it takes, and in that respect time is our favored weapon," Wayne answered Gil's trepidation. "Years, decades, scores or centuries, it does not matter. We will win, mostly because we do not give up and we don't fight fair. What say you?"

Durandal paused, considering Wayne's purpose and his declaration. That he had mentioned the likelihood of a century of battle put the Magi here for a lot longer than anyone initially guessed, but the Chairman had already planned for decades of friendly competition with Mendel. Elongating such a plan to centuries would be a simple task. Of course, Durandal could only smile at the consideration that both Blue Cosmos and Mendel would be distracted by a continual low-intensity war, leaving ZAFT mostly unscathed and able to fly on their own to the stars.

"You will have our support, direct or indirect."

-x-x-x-

(27 July C.E. 72, 1030 Hours Orb Time (UTC-11))

(Emirate of Orb General Assembly Building, Office of the Chief Representative of Orb)

"This meeting is now in session," Chief Representative Cagalli said nonchalantly. "First order of business is...Heliopolis."

"What are our options, milady Cagalli?" Lady Odessa Felde Relida asked. Of the five in the room, the present representative of House Relida was considered the 'weakest' of the five in terms of political power among the ruling families of Orb. Not that such weakness meant much in the long run; a kind word or a fierce declaration from her was enough to sway votes in the Emirate's senate, and such actions became real power when used right.

"Rondo?" Cagalli deferred the answer to Rondo Mina Sahaku, given that the project was hers in terms of administration.

"We have three options for Heliopolis," Rondo began her briefing. "The first option is the slowest option to return Heliopolis to a working colony. Plan One is to rebuild Heliopolis from the salvage we can find in the area and fabricate what was lost or damaged beyond usable by standard process. Our estimate on rebuild, using only Orb manpower, is roughly twelve years. If we contract work out to Colony Construction Corporation in addition to our own personnel and processes, it should take around five years."

"That's unrealistically fast," Unago Seiran groused. The largest person in the room by girth but not by height, he represented the Seirans and their not-insignificant industrial holdings. Unfortunately for him, the position he took tended to poison his results to a significant degree; the bulk of Orb was willing to forgive the Earth Alliance for their depredations, but nobody was going to forget their malice or their bloodthirstiness. His continual attempts to side with them, to front an alliance with the Atlantic Federation, was destroying his credibility and his solvency: in Orb, voting with the checkbook was considered just as powerful as voting at the ballot box, and the Seiran Industrial Network had taken over 30 percent internal sales losses in the past six months.

"Actually, I think they can do better," Sahaku countered sharply. "If they can commission enough colonies to handle their still-burgeoning refugee population, that would free up more CCC assets to work on external projects. The more manpower, the faster it gets done."

"You said this was the 'slow' option. Four years isn't really 'slow' by our definition, so what is 'fast' compared to that?" The fifth voice at the table asked in the silence that followed the brief exchange between Seiran and Sahaku. Ezekiel Cenvanas took the position of number four at the table, as well as the more powerful of the two 'neutral' players on the board (the other 'neutral' being House Relida).

"Six months," Sahaku replied evenly.

Cagalli gaped at the older representative. "Erm, how?" she asked plainly.

"Mendel has a chassis from a severely-damaged Island III colony available for us. It will take repair, but our best engineers assume six months to get it in place, repaired, and repressurized."

"Six months, then another year or so to recommission living facilities?" Lady Odessa asked.

"Year, fifteen months on the outside," Rondo replied. "CCC can fix the colony to pressurization and proper hull integrity, but they are not commissioned or equipped for most internal work. That phase would be all on our own, or our hands plus the Junk Guild at best."

"And the third option?" Cagalli asked.

"Option three is a different path, in terms of recommissioning Heliopolis. Plan 3 is we salvage the material from the destroyed Heliopolis, and turn the asteroid itself over to Mendel for their purposes. We can retain our claim to that area of space and build separate colonies at a later time. This is not a bad idea in the long run, as the mining area on the asteroid is running a bit thin."

"Plan three is a non-starter," Cenvanas replied. "I want to see the look of sheer embarrassment on the faces of the ZAFT officers involved in destroying Heliopolis when it rises from the ashes of its own funeral pyre."

"Shouldn't be many surprised by that," Cagalli noted to Ezekiel. "There are only three persons alive that were involved in that attack. One of them is standing over my right shoulder." Lord Cenvanas grimaced, but said nothing in response to Cagalli's tale. The only person on the far side of Cagalli was Athrun Zala, which made sense in context.

"Another thing to keep in mind is that we need naval dockyard space," Rondo Mina Sahaku said. "For most Warships and just about any possible civilian ship, Heliopolis would make a wonderful graving dock and spaceport with necessary modifications."

"We will certainly need some space for our jumpship and monitor programs," Lady Odessa said in confirmation of the point made by Rondo.

"Cost Analysis?" Cagalli asked of the other four at the table.

"Fixing it ourselves will cost the most, in terms of material outlay and manpower over the long haul. Salvaging the remnants alone will cost a moderate outlay in manpower but will be a profit on material. Using the Island III will cost the most in materials hands down, but will have the least expenditure of manpower of all," Rondo concluded.

"Very well, anything else to add?" Nobody spoke up. "Vote time. Rebuild Heliopolis ourselves?" Only the Seirans raised their hands. "Salvage Heliopolis?" Only the Relida representative raised his hand. "Purchase the Island III chassis?" Both House Cenvanas and House Sahaku raised their hands. "Very well, vote is 3-1-1 in the favor of Proposal Two. This matter is decided."

"I will make the call to my contact in Mendel after we adjourn. No doubt the press will want a large signing ceremony, preferably down here as opposed to inside Mendel," Ezekiel Cenvanas said.

"Very well," Cagalli grumped. She detested the machinations of the press and their incessant drive to sensationalize everything up to and including her morning bathroom routine, but she knew she could not escape their reach in her present position. "Next order of business...formal treaty relations with Kingdom of Scandinavia."

-x-x-x-

(30 July C.E. 72, 2150 hours Orb Time (UTC-11))

(Suburbs of Orb capital city)

"Ninety seconds!" the vehicle crew chief announced their estimated arrival time.

"Lock and load!" Star Captain Vale ordered.

"Lock and load, aff Star Captain," the male sniper in his unit answered.

Inside the back of the truck, fifteen primary weapons bolts were actuated to load ballistic rounds into chambers. The sixteenth weapon in the unit (not counting a wounded assault officer, who was not present due to a blue-on-blue with live ammunition during some training) was an energy weapon and had no mechanical bolt to close; it simply gave off an electric humming sound that was almost indistinguishable over the sound of the engine in their truck. Backup weapons, in all cases a pistol of one kind or another, were drawn and readied with a yank on the slide and a quick thumb to the safety. The three heavy weapons persons in the team were the last to finish up, as each had a small Plasma Pulse SMG (physically not dissimilar to an old Uzi SMG) that they loaded battery packs into and precharged (chambered, in equivalent ballistic weapons).

"Blade check!" Star Captain Vale ordered. "Knife!" Sixteen Ka-Bar combat knives were drawn, a creepy sound to the vehicle crew and a few of the Orb police that were accompanying them. Most of the knives were carried on the left thigh, as part of a tactical leg rig that housed extra magazines for their pistol and a pair of flashbang grenades. "Gladius!" Again, sixteen blades were drawn, though these were custom-made Gladius with a carbon-fiber pressed blade, making them extremely light and very durable compared to their steel contemporaries. "Customs!" Only one blade came out, this one an old steel-blade katana in the hand of one of the scouts.

"All arms readied, sir!" Sniper 2 reported.

"Once more unto the blade!" The Star Captain said, a traditional exhortation to his troops to do their duty and vanquish the foes as was expected of Magi Bladesmen.

" '_Cut me free, bleed with me, oh no_,' " Point Officer Connolly began the chant of an old Magi tradition.

" '_One by one, we will fall, down, down_," The remainder of the unit chanted in following the traditional hymn.

The next line was traditionally always that of the unit's commander, and Vale obliged: " '_Pull the plug, end the pain, run 'n' fight for life_!' "

" '_Hold on tight, this ain't my fight_!' " the unit finished the chant in something of a singing metric.

"Fifteen seconds!" the Driver shouted. He was still shivering from the symbolism inherent to the song, but said nothing of it.

"Remember your ROE (3) and your fields of fire! I don't want any letters to spouses or paperwork for a blue-on-gray!" Vale ordered.

-x-

Captain Alistair Vickson grimaced when the Mendel team split into two 'stars' of five troops and a reinforced 'star' of seven. Fresh intelligence had changed the name of the game literally just as he was jumping out the back of the transport truck. The police had found records that two of the employees for the renegade corporation lived in an apartment building a block away from the data center, and the adjacent building to the objective had two more of the employees. The rest slept in on-site housing on the floors above the data center.

The unit of seven troops stacked on Captain Vickson's position. "At your command, Captain Vickson," the Mendel Star Captain said.

"We'll move to jump-off here in a moment. Your demolitions guy ready?"

"Aff, Captain," Specialist Connolly replied immediately.

"Quick reminder, everyone, we want them alive if possible. They're not going to provide us intelligence if they are dead," Alistair mentioned on all four radio circuits for the operation.

"Clear, sir," Vale replied by spoken word.

"Vale, you have the third team on the separate structure. Marcos, second team, adjacent apartment. I have the main objective."

"Clear, Captain," Major Rigos replied immediately.

"Aff, sir," Vale replied before he came to attention and turned to join the third unit.

After thirty seconds to allow the teams to reorganize, in which they split themselves to have complimentary personnel on each entry team from each involved nation, Vickson determined it was time to move. "Move to jumpoff, now, now, now!"

The three teams turned their respective corners and advanced on the three buildings they were set to raid. Blue Cosmos was using a datacenter corporation as a router for terrorist communications through Orb, theoretically as a method of legitimizing network traffic headed to or from Mendel. Their plan fell short of a decent cover operation, and the capture of terrorist computers in Mendel in the clean-up after a botched hit had pegged the exact address of the server in question. Orb had been asked to go in and capture personnel and/or equipment; Orb had asked the Mendel and USSA Special Operations Teams to assist in the assault.

The three teams all reported to Captain Alistair Vickson of Orb Defensive Operations Tactical (ODOT) Team Three, and Captain Vickson knew he had over thirty very good men and women to assault three structures. Mendel was providing the bulk of the manpower on this operation, as they had the most personnel in the training rotation, but Vickson definitely was not discounting the ferocity of the USSA personnel or the ingenuity of the Orb team in play.

"One, stacked," Star Captain Vale declared. "Demo ready in five."

"Two, stacked. Door is open." Marcos Samuel, the CO for the USSA Spec Ops team, reported before he went silent

"Three, stacked, demo in fifteen. Going to wedge charge, door is too heavy for light stuff," Star Captain Vale reported initially. After fifteen seconds, he declared ready to breach.

"Breach, now, now, now!" On the third rendition of 'now', two blasts a block away from each other shook the people in the area from their beds. Before more than two lights could be flipped on by anyone thus woke, the teams had made entry into all three objective buildings.

-x-

The initial blast of explosives jarred the server administrator awake; the echoes of the blast told him enough about what had happened. Someone was assaulting the building, a clearly non-Orb tactic. The Orb national police force was always cordial and professional, not given to the high-profile antics and excesses normal of European-model law enforcement.

"Belle! Wake up, we're under attack!" The administrator shouted.

"Mhuh?" Belle groaned from her bed on the other side of the room. The sound of a firearm bolt roused her further from her slumber. "What?"

"Someone is storming the facility, get armed!"

"What?" She asked again, though this time her hand went for her preferred weapon, an old Mac-9 sub-machinegun.

The administrator approached the door to his quarters quietly and opened it a crack to look down to the first floor of the server farm. Pete, the night-time operator, was already dead; the brass from his weapon glinted reflections of the server lights around him, but the puddle of blood emanating from a significant crater in the back of his head told enough of a tale. Mikey, the transitional morning server engineer, was holed up behind a desk and firing short bursts over the edge of the desk at someone to the east in the room.

A line of impacts danced across the top of the heavy wooden desk, obviously fired from some sort of silenced rifle or sub-machinegun. Nothing happened for a few seconds, then an azure beam of some kind sliced through the wood surface and into Mikey's right leg. He bellowed and fell right, now visible to his erstwhile foes. It took Mikey a moment to realize where he landed, but once he saw his position he immediately went for his sidearm and popped off two shots from his side-laying position. Mikey never had a chance to take a third shot as more than five rounds struck him in the face and tore his head apart.

The assailants made their presence known by way of closing up on the stairway to the upper floor apartments. It was an easy bit of analysis to figure out that the assaulters were a multinational force of operators, with the lead officer being a BC high-priority target by the name of Alistair Vickson. The third person in sight paid no heed to the body or table, simply aimed her weapon up the stairs and practically right at him. "Police! Exit that room immediately and unarmed!"

"FUCK OFF!" The administrator bellowed before he raised his assault rifle and unleashed his entire magazine. The return fire was immediate and frightening, as the entire door and frame began disintegrating under the gunfire. It did not take long for pure chance to catch up to his desire for a blue and pure world, as a round caromed off the door handle and struck him in the chest just above the sternum.

As he drowned by his own blood filling his lungs, the Administrator watched Belle with detached emotions as she tried to slide under her bed, screaming her outright fright at being caught in a room that was being suppressed by no less than four automatic weapons. The bright flash and loud crack of a flashbang grenade presaged the assaulters entering the room. The first through the door was not Vickson nor someone from Orb – the armpatch on his jungle-camo uniform put him from the USSA, a curious turn from what he expected. Belle provided no resistance to their attempt to capture her, though what happened beyond that was lost to his mind fogging as blood loss and oxygen deprivation began to take their hold.

Before his mind faded to black, he found himself staring at the visage of a beautiful lady, though carrying an old M-60 light machine gun. He considered that a discordant combination for an angel, though the armpatch on her uniform, the Mendel colony, dispelled that illusion in what remained of his consciousness.

-x-

The apartment location adjacent to the server farm did not require a beaching charge to enter. With a quick flick of the wrist, Major Marcos Samuel (USSA Special Operations) pushed into the front room of the apartments. By the time he had taken his first step into the room, his rifle was up and his eyes were immediately tracking for threats – there were none in the room, but there were two possible directions that threats could come from.

The second man inside the room went left as was his duty, his M4 assault rifle trained on the left open area which led to the kitchen and small dining area. The third inside the room stacked up on the Major and poked her assault rifle forward toward the short hallway leading to the bedroom/bathroom area. After she signaled ready to move, the Major led the way forward with a finger in the rear belt loop on his pants; he expected some form of physical contact from another spec ops trooper, but USSA troops didn't 'engage' the lead in a stack like that, so it was a bit of a creepy feeling to the Major but a good reassurance that he was not going in alone.

The hallway on the left was short – barely four meters long, with three doors branching off. The building plans showed the right door to be the bathroom, and the left door to be the small bedroom, leaving the forward door to be the main bedroom. Marcos stepped forward and held up a flashbang visible to his trailer, who gave him two nudges in response. The USSA Major pulled the pin, careful to make sure the safety lever was still in place and held down by his thumb, then released his assault rifle to hang by the sling; with his right hand freed, the door was quickly opened and the Major threw in the NFD (4) then slammed the door closed again.

The response from the far side of the door would have been comical in any other noncombat circumstance: "WHAT THE FU—" **WRAAM**.

Two operators pushed through the door to secure the room and capture the persons inside. Major Samuel reacted to stumbling into the bed inside the room within the first pace by way of grabbing at one of the occupants – never mind that the person involved was naked. Once he regained his balance, he gripped tight on her shoulder and hauled her off the end of the bed and down to the floor while his right hand went to his firearm to regain proper grip.

"What the fuck – what is wrong with you?" the lady asked.

"Hrm," the Mendel operator grunted. "Seems we have a bad penchant for assaulting structures where someone is in the process of getting laid. I would apologize for such an interruption, but I never apologize to a terrorist," she said while staring down the sights of her rifle at the man still on the bed. "Don't go for that piece, boy, or this rifle will be your reaper. Follow?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said with something resembling gravity. "Can I at least put some clothes on?"

"Neg, remain where you are," she ordered. The other rooms in this wing of the apartment were cleared immediately following her order. "Trailers!"

"Yes, ma'am?" the police sergeant asked.

"Search their clothes, then issue underwear to each. Nothing more."

"Yes, ma'am," the sergeant replied.

"What? We can't get dressed?" the lady asked.

"You'll be wearing orange jumpsuits soon enough, lady," Major Samuel replied.

"And what the fuck is up with the swords? Think you'll ever get to chop someone up with 'em?" the guy asked with a tone indicating contempt for her blades.

"It is a tradition among Magi," she replied nonchalantly. "The sight of a steel blade dripping crimson hate will readily cripple the morale of enemy infantry. Shall I demonstrate?" she finished her question in the same nonchalant tone, as if being asked to take out a mildly offensive piece of trash to a refuse bin.

The gist of her message and intonation got through quite clearly. "Erm, no thank you," he replied a moment before his boxers were dropped on the bed beside him.

-x-

The use of a line shape charge was something of an overkill measure in the estimation of Star Captain Vale. Still, his skill with demolitions was not the best in the unit by a long shot, and on this one he deferred to the specialist on the scene. Barry Kotorx said it was necessary for a reliable breach, therefore the Star Captain simply nodded and allowed it to go ahead.

The loud crashing sound of the shape charge was followed shortly by the sound of a flashbang going off in the room, standard operating procedure for entering what is presumed to be a hostile environment. After the combination one-two punch of noisemakers, the entry was led by Sergeant Hector De La Yuros, the senior man on the USSA team and their heavy weapons specialist. His second, the heavy from the Orb Defense Team, was a bare pace behind Hector and that gap saved his life.

The sound of a small but loud submachine gun instantly belied the preparedness of the enemy. The United States of South America Sergeant shouted as he went down from several hits, though the second man in did not take any hits because of the speedy and decisive reaction from the third person in the stack. Recon officer Venus bolted forward and interposed herself between the Orb heavy weapons officer and the coming line of fire, deliberately putting her body armor between the enemy shooter and the less-protected Orb officer. Star Captain Vale found himself more than horrified to watch his recon officer take nearly a complete magazine of submachine gun rounds in the back and shoulders, although the fact that she remained standing vindicated her choice in armor.

The Star Captain moved his part of the stack forward and tossed in another flashbang to hopefully suppress and disorient the enemy. The customary two seconds waiting dragged on as Vale imagined his foe was busy reloading his weapon or switching to a secondary, though after the blinding flash he needed not imagine what was happening in the room since Venus immediately turned in and proceeded to fire four rounds at the tango who had shot her. The Orb heavy weapons specialist move forward and stacked on her to continue the entry, followed immediately by the Star Captain entering to secure the room and allow for continued sweep of the apartment. The Magi medical officer assigned to his reconnaissance star followed in after a pair of United States of South America troops entered to continue the search.

"How is he doing, Gaffer?" Star Captain Vale asked as the other troops moved into the other rooms in the apartment.

"He will live, boss. Three to his left upper arm means he won't be on an entry team for a while, but that can be fixed." While speaking, Gafargion had begun the process of applying bandages to the four hits the USSA heavy weapons operator had absorbed.

"Bed wing cleared!" An Orb officer reported by way of shouting.

"Kitchen is empty!"

"We are missing one," Star Captain Vale groused. "Command, Entry Three, one tango down and one tango missing in action. Requesting further orders, over," he reported over the radio.

"Entry Three, Command, acknowledge report. Negative location on second suspect at this time. No further orders for pursuit or search, remain at location and secure area for investigation teams. Updates to follow. Command is out."

"No surprises there, boss-man. Different playing field, different rules for searches."

The Star Captain looked his recon officer up and down and nodded slowly. "Good reaction saving the Orb entry officer, by the way. Did you react on sound, or did you sense that coming?"

Recon Officer Venus looked at her superior officer through one eye, the other eye closed in a definite wink. "May I plead the fifth?"

Vale simply smiled. "You may do so, for now at least. We'll discuss this further at a later time."

"Holy shit, sir, look at the back of her armor!"

"Dude, that is an insane amount of damage;" coming from a Orb SWAT team member, the Magi officers considered that fairly high praise.

"What, this? I have seen these armors take far more damage than simply half a magazine and still be usable," the Recon Officer replied. "Ceramex Dragon Scale Six body armor, what we use when we cannot use our Infantry Armor. Stops everything short of a man-pack particle cannon or a 50 mm autocannon."

"Have any for sale?" the Orb heavy weapons specialist asked bluntly.

"Give me a few days, we might be able to work something out." Internally, Star Captain Vale smiled at the backhanded complement his team just received from another special operations group.

-x-x-x-

(3 August C.E. 72)  
>(Atlantic Federation, Ohio Basin industrial area)<p>

Long considered the industrial powerhouse of the United States, the Ohio Basin had suffered its ups and downs over the decades and centuries of its manufacturing history. The Reconstruction War had pushed the manufacturing resources of the area to the breaking point, and even succeeded in partially breaking down the industrial juggernaut that made the United States one of the major technological superpowers of the world. It would take 50 years for the new stewards of the land to properly rebuild the capabilities once thought annihilated at the changing of the era, but the renewed capabilities returned to the world the fear of overwhelming technological and tactical superiority that was thought extinct with the passing of the United States.

The true extent of this manner of fear only lasted a couple decades. The Zodiac Alliance Of Freedom Treaty, long forced to be demilitarized by humiliating treaties and overt threat of force, simply gave up playing the fear game and used their mastery of space and space-born technologies to produce a weapons platform that forced both the technology of warfare and the tactics of warfare into a new paradigm that nobody on planet was prepared for. This new weapon system, commonly referred to as the Mobile Suit, represent the next great shift and mobile warfare and armored warfare technology, and it's early dominance and continued flexibility proved it a weapon system to stay in use for years to come. No longer could simple mass manufacture be used as a weapon of intimidation, and no longer could simple force of numbers be used to overwhelm a hardened enemy.

As in all things warfare, what is the province of researchers and scientists in one day is the simple design challenge of an engineer the next day. ZAFT mobile suit dominance lasted no more than two years before the other major technological players on planet began developing and deploying their own Mobile Suits. Herein the Ohio Basin showed its true colors once more: factories throughout the old United States territories Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Indiana retooled to begin producing parts and assemblies for the new mass production Mobile Suit Strike Dagger. Final assembly of the new machines was handled at a factory that once produced main battle tanks for first the United States, then later for the Atlantic Federation.

"Will you look at those shits move?" One technician asked another.

"Those are our designs! Our fucking machines!" An assembly worker whined for the benefit of his coworkers.

"Newsflash, kiddies, they ain't our designs no more. Soon enough, we going to be facing them and this is all the proof we need to know it's going to hurt," their supervisor declared coldly. The footage being watched by the resting assembly workers was footage of the warship _Dominion_ and its three Gundams, an undercard match between said forces and the main warship of the Emirate of Orb and a handful of their reasonably-effective mass production mobile suits.

The employees had stopped to review some smuggled video from a practice session between Orb space mobile forces and the Mendel Protectorate defense forces. If any one thing was proved to them by the video, the main point was a combination of Earth Alliance machines and Magi tactics and training made for a nightmarish foe. The second major point demonstrated in the footage was that even the best of aces from the past war could be defeated – and defeated soundly – with a combination of proper tactics and proper weapons. The third lesson, and one not truly understood by most except the supervisor, was the outright power and utility of a proper warship.

The final battle of the first war between space and earth had ended on the most bizarre of notes. By all technicalities, there was only one winner and two defeats: Mendel won, ZAFT and the Earth Alliance lost. For all that the press made significant noise about a neutral outcome to the end of the war, everyone in the military structures of the involved nations knew it was very artful bullshit. A war does not simply peter out, a war does not end on a happy note, a war cannot have multiple victors, a war will always end with someone winning and someone losing; anyone involved in the military or military-industrial trades had a better understanding of this simple set of facts than the press ever would.

What truly made the end of the first war a bizarre conclusion was not that it was ended by a third and otherwise unknown party, but that it was ended by a single fleet comprised of mixed and derelict forces that were numerically insignificant compared to the forces fielded by the Earth Alliance and ZAFT. In this, the Magi almost immediately tipped their hand to both sides. The Earth Alliance had some degree of understanding in that the actions of the nation of Orb were magnified by their reasonably advanced mobile forces and their extensive training program for those forces. The Magi took those same principles and literally amplified them by a factor of 10, resulting in an insanely skewed kill ratio of nearly 30 to one. This above all else prove to the Earth Alliance that the old tactics of mass of numbers and mass of equipment died long before the Reconstruction War, and the players of battlefields elsewhere in existence were not impressed by an attempt to revive such wasteful tactics.

The change in understanding resulted in changes inside the Earth Alliance mobile warfare doctrine. Even before the rollout of Strike Dagger number 400, the order came down that the Strike Dagger was to be slowly phased out to a second-line posting, to be replaced on the front lines by first the 105 Dagger, and soon to come the Dagger L and the newest machine Windam. The Earth Alliance emphasis was significantly different from the design concept used by the space-bound forces. In the Dagger series, the machine emphasis was in mission variability; the Windam focused mostly on maneuverability and speed, with a strong second in variable operations. ZAFT tended toward outright power and destructive potential in their designs; machines like the LaGOWE were fast, but their main focus was to deliver a serious hurting to anything that they were ordered to hit. Mendel, and their predecessors the Magi, focus in the extreme on defensive power; practically any of their designs could withstand multiple hits from even the heaviest mobile forces beam weapons in use by any other player on planet, with their best designs being practically impervious to even warship grade beam weapons and severely resistant to mobile suit-grade missiles and machine cannons.

The change in paradigm was welcome to the factory workers. Seeing Strike Daggers basically outmatched by first ZAFT and then essentially slaughtered by Mendel was very disheartening to the production workers, especially those workers who had family flying in said machines. The revision in policy meant that there was a good chance more pilots would be coming home and even a chance that the forces of space could be slowed or stopped and eventually brought to task for their failings and their backstabbing and their inherent racism. Few made the assumption that new designs would catapult the Earth Alliance ahead of the mobile forces they faced; most were content with the assumption that the new machines would allow the Earth Alliance to break even with the others. Combined with a revised training and deployment doctrine, the Earth Alliance intended to remain a major player in the affairs of the world, with the threat of eventual reclamation of their old position of being the dominant force in global politics.

"Looks pretty sweet, but I'd hate to see the look on their faces when they get a whiff of some of the new projects we got now," the same assembly worker as before declared with the notable hint of pride.

"Oh? What have you heard lately?" The supervisor asked.

"Have you heard of the new project Gells-Ghe? The land mobile weapon designed to provide defense for structures and mobile defense for troops on the march?"

"Have heard about it, don't know much about it. What do you know?"

"They're planning about 20 of these units and 10 of something else, and they intend them for fleet and base defense against Magi heavy weapons bombardment. And I keep hearing rumors about something else, something way larger, almost like those massive Big Zam mobile armor units the Magi love for space dominance. Only this other thing supposed to be a land weapon."

The supervisor snorted. "Yeah, well, don't make no noise about these new machines in earshot to the bosses, and damn well don't make no noise anywhere near those space-faggots. We don't want to spoil no surprise for them, you hear?"

"I hear that," the mechanic said. Before he could go into detail about the new designs and what rumors he had heard, the time clock buzzed to announce the end of break. "Dammit, I swear these breaks are getting shorter and shorter."

Several of his coworkers simply chuckled at the observation. "You ain't lying, amigo," a weapons technician responded.

"Man, we can take breaks after we beat seven shades of fuck out of Mendel. Until then, I'm going to build me as many suits as I can." The worker in question had obvious scars from exploding video equipment on his face and neck. Everyone in the factory knew he was a veteran of the second battle of Jachin Due, and knew he received those scars by way of Magi missile weapons. For him, as with many others in the factory, the manufacturing war that would precede the actual ground and space war was as personal as if they were still on the front lines.

"All we can do, brother, all we can do." Most of the workers nodded in silent confirmation of their supervisor's comment.

Their silent sentiments would take them far, would take the Earth Alliance far, but few would ever understand how far or how fast or how effective that attitude would truly be.

-x-x-x-

(11 August C.E. 72, 1230 hours UTC)

(Planet-side dock, Mendel Colony)

"70-Echo-3 to port scheduling, assigned task is completed and am requesting new assignment, over."

"Confirmed, 70-Echo-3, new instructions are being uploaded to your guidance system at this time. Execute assignment immediately unless refuel is required. Port Scheduling is out."

"70-Echo-3 from Foreman, aren't you due for a break?" Her supervisor asked.

"Negative, boss, I've got 33 minutes until the end of my shift," Spacer Apprentice Yvette replied immediately. She deliberately did not say she had skipped her last break just to be out and about to do her job, which put her EVA where she wanted to be.

The first two of a new class of starship had been delivered fresh for manufacture and shake down courtesy of the shipwrights in the ZAFT-controlled PLANT Naval facilities. Contrary to the common purpose of said facilities, the new ships were not combat units and actually had no armaments, defensive or offensive. This design decision had surprised many naval observers and several ambassadors to Mendel, in that Magi warships and most civilian ships were almost always armed in one fashion or another. Of course, anyone in the know about the ships immediately understood the modular construction they had been built with would readily allow either the cargo-structured or towing-structured of the first two ships to be outfitted with several different armaments and facilities kits to allow it to be used as anything from a mini carrier to a missile frigate to a main-gun battle cruiser. Such a conversion would take no less than three weeks, however the few Earth Alliance spies and analysts who had seen the conversion plans had little doubt that merely one or two such ships could easily change the numbers in space against any hope of victory for the Alliance.

True to the original purpose of the class the first four of the ships, designated _Garm_-class ships in following with the Magi convention of naming ship classes after mythological or historical references, were all initially set up as three cargo haulers and one large equipment tug. Mendel received the tug and the second cargo hauler, ZAFT received the first cargo hauler and the fourth ship went to a Scandinavian cargo firm. Another batch of four vessels were now occupying the graving yards, though unlike the first four of the class, one of these ships was designated as a warship right from production, a missile frigate to complement the existing Magi-vintage missile frigates that came along with the _Mjolnr_.

For Yvette, the call to action by the Mendel government had resulted in the fulfillment of a long-standing dream of hers: a job working in the vastness of space. The thrill of being so close to depressurization death, literally no more than 2 cm of Ferroglass and quasi-armor plating in protection between her and decompression, far beat out any possible thrill from extreme sports or otherwise 'normal' pursuits, with the possible exception of combat. The two new star ships required two new crew complements, and Yvette was first in line to sign up for space welding in conjunction with the new Asgard shipyard station. She was not the first selected, of course, given that over a dozen other applicants already had experience with the job she applied for, but it only took two days from her application for her to be signed on as an apprentice space welder.

Yvette checked her instrument panels and shrugged off the implicit order to refuel and take a break. The list of tasks was far below the necessities of a refuel as far as she was concerned, so she wouldn't waste time with a re-up when it always took the same amount of time regardless of her supply. Her new career also came with the unstated but very welcome fringe benefit of learning how to use essentially civilian-model battle armor. The Starhound light armor system carried no weapons and only mounted enough armor to protect from basic rough use or small weapons fire, nothing significant in terms of protection. The advantage of using a larger armor system for the Starhound was the ability to carry 170 kg of specialized equipment, a full day worth of life-support, enhanced sensor systems, an integrated laser torch, and a full maneuvering system for working in and around complex objects. Compared to a welder using a simple spacesuit and appropriate equipment, Yvette could easily assemble and weld nearly 6 times as much material per hour in her suit and be better protected while doing so.

That she was a Coordinator meant she learned how to use the suit and adapted to zero-G operations at an incredible pace; she was deployed and ready for operations a full three months before the ship was out of shakedown, so she had been assigned to the dockyard area for seasoning and to put her new skills to use. Moving cargo boxes and fuel tanks provided much of the necessary seasoning for zero-g maneuvering that she would need in coming months and years as a welder on the Asgard project.

"Control, 70-Echo-3 acknowledges order package. Moving to location one at this time, over." Yvette turned her Starhound around and fired off two quick blasts of thrust in her next direction of movement. After 40 seconds of coasting, she rotated her suit on the yaw axis and fired another pair of quick bursts of propellant to complete her maneuver for her first objective. A sealed shipping unit had been released into the loading area for the ship headed to the asteroid field, and her assigned duty was to move that crate to the cargo monitor and turn it over to their crew. Two quick bursts of propellant brought her to a near-stop at the crate, with just enough forward momentum to reach out and grip a handle bar on the side of the box.

Given the size of the box, the dock hands had put forth the effort to attach a set of maneuvering motors to this freight to allow for easy movement from the harbor to the ship. The motors themselves were removable, typically issued in groups of six or twelve, and controlled from either a panel integrated into the crate or by a remote control box (in this case, by remote control). Yvette took up the control panel and used her laser torch to cut the zip-tie that secured it to the box. With three key presses, she had the box moving toward the destination ship and gave herself five quick bursts to keep pace with it. It took a minute to coast out to the waiting ship, but she prided herself on her economic fuel usage and the fact that she almost always reported below-average expenditures when compared to harbor control's estimates on what she should be using.

Slightly before the shipping container reached the intended destination, she began applying minute amounts of reverse thrust to bring the box to a halt almost exactly where she wanted it. The delivery was met by the crew of the intended recipient ship. "Thanks for the delivery, harbor girl," an older hand Shipman acknowledged the delivery.

"No problem, old guy. Take good care of it," and Yvette lightly passed the motor control to the waiting crewmen.

"Always do, kid. See you next time," he answered. With two deft commands, she was on her way back to the harbor. Her quickness to get back on task spared her the sight of what was to come, and also indirectly saved her life.

Behind her, a blasting charge hidden deep inside the container reached the end of its timer and detonated. The reinforced steel walls of the box shredded into several hundred twisted pieces of shrapnel and were sent in every direction, along with the actual parts contents of the container. The crewmen seeing to the box were all killed to a man; several pieces of the container were later found embedded in the outermost hull plates of the ship, though the story of the day would be Yvette. A twisted piece of shard metal from the frame of the container struck her suit in the rear slightly below her left kidney. The shard punched through her secondary life support unit, through the lower part of the maneuver housing on the back of her armor, and even found its way inside the armor with enough velocity to impale her clean through and stopped dead on the front chest armor plate. Herein, the advanced construction of the suit saved her life with a timely shot of pain suppressant and stimulant from the onboard medical system as a compound known as HarJel sealed off the puncture in the back of the internal containment zone.

She was barely conscious enough to aim her suit at the civilian Harbor and apply propulsion to head in. In this case she was not sparing on the fuel, a decision which would speed up medical relief to her and ultimately saved her life.

-x-x-x-

(14 August C.E. 72, 2200 hours Lima (UTC-4) time)  
>(USSA Classified Research Facility 3, Chile, South America)<p>

Edward Harrelson never was one to grow a beard or even a respectable mustache, thus he found he usually just scratched his head when he was contemplating something bizarre. And what he had just been briefed in on definitely counted among the five most bizarre things he had ever heard.

"Okay, let me get this straight. This frame – which you're hand-building in the same style the Magi build Omnimech frames – is the basis for a large and fast mobile weapon?"

"Aye, sir," the Colonel over the project replied.

"And when it is done, it will be roughly 40 meters tall?" Edward asked for clarification.

"Aye, sir."

"What advantage would having something that big provide?" Edward 'Ed The Ripper' Harrelson asked bluntly.

"Larger size means more and larger hard-mount equipment, sir," the main engineer replied. "We can't duplicate some of the base technologies in the unit – not yet at least. I-Fields in particular are well beyond our ken, and that is one of the unit's major defensive protections. We can, however, substitute available systems for unknowns, and the mass difference will be needed."

Ed nodded thoughtfully at the turn of phrase given to him. It wasn't hugely surprising on the face of it, but the sheer audacity of the project was beyond insane. On the other hand, the proliferation of 'spatially aware persons' in the USSA was becoming evident, with pilots making ace rank in skirmishes against Blue Cosmos raiders in action that was wholly the stuff of legends...or bad science fiction dime novels. This project was aimed specifically at those who were in the 'HSA' category, or what the Magi would call Newtypes, and it would take all their skills to make it work right.

"What's the main design variance?" Ed's adjutant asked, changing the direction of the conversation slightly.

"Bigger engine, by a factor of 250 percent. The original design used a ten-ton Minovsky-type linear containment fusion reactor. Our design will use a 26.5 ton 400-rated extralight toroidal dual-stage fusion reactor, salvaged from a destroyed Fireball omnifighter."

"Wait, what?" Edward half-shouted. "How the hell did you get your hands on one of those?"

"Technically, sir, **we** did not," the Colonel replied smoothly. "The Junk Guild salvaged a displaced Fireball that was found nearby the salvage field of Heliopolis. We had a Special Operations team in the area, going over the zone for more salvage from the Astray project, and they were able to convince the Junk Guild that the wreck of the Fireball was veritably worthless. Few mill to grease the skids and we walked away with about 65 tons of what was a 100-ton omnifighter. Win-win for both sides."

"They didn't know who they were talking to, right?" Ed asked. "If the Junk Guild lets fly we have a dead Fireball, and Mendel hears, we could be up to our asses in trouble in very short order." Ed was one of those few military leaders on planet that didn't make a habit of short-changing the Magi capabilities, and so much as one Mendel warship parked over the USSA could cause extreme amounts of damage with suborbital bombardment.

"You'll want to read the whole report, but our guys passed themselves off as metals salvagers, subcontractors to Mendel's salvage unit. They thought they were selling the Fireball back to Mendel, so it's a double-blind transaction."

"Okay, sounds easy enough," Ed said. "What else will be different?"

"The arsenal will be a bit different; we're planning on trading a couple of the larger mega particle cannons for hyper-impulse beam cannons, same expected effectiveness with reduced energy requirements."

Ed nodded thoughtfully again. "That's a good plan. What are you going to do with the spare power?"

"Sir, we could double up on the original arsenal specs and still have power to spare. A standard toroidal fusion engine is more powerful than a linear Minovsky-type, something to do with containment and energy recycling. I don't pretend to understand the particulars and I won't bullshit you on it, but by the numbers, ton for ton a standard Battlemech engine is more powerful than a Minovsky-type."

"What kind of expected speed will it have?" Captain Jane Houston asked after everyone considered the advantageous choice of engine.

"We're estimating roughly 2.5Gs of acceleration, provided we don't lighten the design in a few different ways proposed by the engineering division. The machine has roughly 32 thrusters and Apogee motors, so it will turn exceptionally fast in the right hands."

"Survivability?" Jane asked while others marveled at its expected speed.

"55 tons titanium armor with ablative ceramic composite to resist beam fire. She should take a beating from all weapons except heavy naval ballistic weapons, at least temporarily. I wouldn't count on her to slug it out with Magi mobile armor systems, but against anything else she will do the job and do it repeatedly." The colonel did not sound exactly fawning, though the hint of praise in his voice was readily audible.

"Damn impressive," Jane Houston declared with her own hint of praise.

Edward simply nodded his acknowledgment of the sparring between his girlfriend and the project manager. "Quin Mantha," he mouthed the name of the project lying before him on the floor of a hangar. "We will need more," he groused.

"We have only the one engine, sir. These things cannot be run on battery packs, they run out of energy far too fast to be useful."

Edward looked to the Colonel with a determined expression. "If I can secure more engines, can you build more?"

"My men will build a thousand if you can secure as many engines, sir. We have everything or can build everything except the engines."

"One will do for now, Ed. We have more ways to protect ourselves now than we ever did," Captain Houston replied.

"Not enough, Jane. We will need more, when they come we will need far more." If Harrelson could sound any more pained, how was lost on Jane and the Colonel.

Realizing what he meant, Jane simply nodded. "Yeah," she replied tiredly. "And they will come," she appended after a few moments of silence. "The Earth Alliance has not given up on us."

"This one will be ready in three months, Colonel Harrelson. Give us more engines, and we will give you more Quin Mantha."

-x-x-x-

(16 August C.E. 72, 0825 UTC)

(GARM R&D Civilian Studies Area, Classroom 3-A, Mendel Colony)

"There are many examples of the difference between political expediency and decisive solution, though in some cases the difference can be rather blurry," Instructor Foppies said. "The key difference to remember when gauging such actions is both the effect of the actions and the reason why the actions were taken. Political expediency is achieved when a ruling class executes an action that never solves the base problem but is instead done to give the appearance of action. Decisive solution may initially appear to be a simple expedient action taken, but usually after the course of action is done such actions will actually have either contributed to or completely solved the problem. Actions that blur the line between decisive and expedient are usually harder to find throughout history, though such actions have been seen from time to time."

The Instructor looked back and forth briefly at her students, then smiled in the evil fashion that usually presaged her taking action to make the students work for their daily grade. "I think a little bit of audience participation is in order," she said in a clearly evil intonation. "Mike, you're first." Said student immediately stood to attention, as was expected of any student being directly addressed by their instructor in any Magi school. "Name an incident that a political solution was immediately or very quickly implemented, tell us whether it was expedient or decisive, and explain your reasoning."

"Ma'am, I present that the Torino Protocol was an expedient solution to a non-existent problem, an action taken solely to politically bolster the present ruling parties in the eye of the public. The only real effect of the Protocol was to increase dissatisfaction among Coordinators and begin the large-scale exodus of Coordinators from Earth to the colonies."

"A good example, and a textbook example of a politician's tendency to create phantom enemies for them to attack and hopefully defeat. Next, I will say Mandy is under the spotlight."

The commensurate timid student of the class, Mandy was slightly slower than average to stand but did as ordered because she knew she could not get out of it. "Ma'am, I believe Operation Uroboros is an example of both expediency and decisiveness. It was expedient because the consequences were never fully thought out, decisive because they caused severe damage to the Earth Alliance national infrastructure."

"Accurate on particulars, but not entirely accurate on reasoning. Historic evidence shows that the command level of ZAFT knew exactly what would happen when Neutron Jammers were spread across Earth. Not to sound entirely cold about it, but there it is a significant difference between not knowing and not giving a damn. At the time ZAFT suffered a rather terminal case of 'do not give a damn' and to an extent still does suffer that attitude. Next participant shall be Amy."

Amy stood and bowed in the traditional Start League fashion. "Ma'am, I say that the Vietnam War was a politically expedient campaign. It was started in one administration, passed through two more administrations, and was finally ended by a fourth administration. Along the way, the whole operation plan was extremely disjointed, fought halfheartedly, incorrectly or at times not at all, and due to multi-level disconnect it was more or less doomed to failure."

The instructor nodded thoughtfully. "Accurate on your conclusion, not on your reasoning. What you gave in analysis is solely the political and media outlook of the war, the military analysis is very different from what the press saw and reported. The history books you have read are based mostly on the expedient side of the facts, ergo what was reported by the press, mainly because the authors and editors of those books either didn't have access to accurate information or intellectually didn't want to use accurate information. I am assigning you an archive pass to access the databases from the _Mjolnr_ and to take an in-depth look at the military campaigns used by both sides. No rush, call it two weeks to dig up some info on what really happened on the ground during that war. Five pages should suffice for a report; my recommendation is you focus on Ho Chi Minh and Westmoreland, especially their meetings after the war, that should give you a clear idea how close the outcome came to being significantly different."

"Aye ma'am, does this exempt me from other assignments?"

"Unless I say otherwise, do all your normal assignments." The dejected grunt was expected by everyone, but a few still snickered at it. Most of the instructors made it a point to assign research projects to students almost at random, though almost always with the intent of forcing those students to correct misconceptions and mostly to teach independent analysis and free thought. More than a few transplant students had found out the hard way that simply parroting back the opinions of politicians or the press was a quick way to earn a failing grade among Magi classes. Another thing readily apparent about classes with Magi instructors was the significantly stacked workload, whereby students would receive assignments that were not simple 'read and answer questions' tasks, but assignments requiring more critical thinking and independent analysis.

For Diana Trimes, an otherwise plain and unobtrusive Natural, Magi classes were easily the toughest courses she had ever been in – but a lot more fun than other courses despite the difficulty. It wasn't always the same crap in a different binding, Magi instructors tended to vary the course load and focus almost at random. There wasn't much you could do to help most mathematical disciplines, but any other subject could be 'modified' to teach the course requirements by way of extra (entertaining) lessons. Nothing like this was taught in Atlantic Federation schools, and she considered herself lucky for it. Of course, the story of her adventure to get to Mendel had been counted for her, in that most instructors counted it as class credit / IRL experience, so she had that going for her but not much more.

"Wes, you are the next contestant," Instructor Foppies ordered.

Said student stood as was required, but held up his pants in lieu of a bow or salute. "Ma'am, I think the Copernicus Conference, what would be the Tragedy of Copernicus, was a political expedient solution to Earth's energy and resource crisis, but a decisive move for Blue Cosmos and their sub-groups. The PLANTs were not really interested in negotiations with Earth after their long history of getting screwed over by them, so chances were less than fifty-fifty that anything meaningful would have happened. For Blue Cosmos, the opportunity to eliminate the UN leadership was their golden moment to get rid of the peaceniks still suppressing their efforts and jump-start the sentiment of war among the nations of the EA. The UN failed and collapsed a little more than a month later, Blue Cosmos succeeded and started their war. Machiavelli would be proud."

"A very good supposition, but Machiavelli-caliber that is not. You're giving a little too much credit to Blue Cosmos on that one, especially since their day-to-day M-O is brutality well beyond Machiavelli, without any of his major political maneuvering skills. Look up on Machiavelli's maneuvers before you invoke his name again, and resume your seat before gravity steals away your pants." Some sniggered at her reference of his big saggy pants, but it was short lived.

The instructor's eyes ranged over the classroom for a few seconds, seeking another student to challenge. This rotation of her class had a skewed demographic: five male students and seventeen female made for difficult odds for the guys, since she seemed to favor calling upon the guys almost at a disproportionately high rate. The lull in the action was always very brief, and soon enough she had her next target. "Mindy, your turn."

"Ma'am, I present The Falklands War as a case of political expediency becoming a decisive solution. The operation was begun in a hurried and slapdash fashion, without even using proper military transports to shuttle military units from Britain to the Falklands, but in the end the operation was begun for all the right reasons. Argentina's claim to the islands have been rebuffed by the islanders themselves, and no proper nation on planet is going to stand around with thumb implanted while another nation invades and occupies otherwise acknowledged sovereign territory. Also, it is widely believed that Prime Minister Margret Thatcher was on her last legs in political terms before the incident, and her involvement in reclaiming the territory earned her the nickname 'The Iron Maiden' and several more years in office. It became decisive when the British used excellent tactics and superiority of training to overwhelm and destroy first the Argentine Air Force, then the Argentine ground forces on the islands in a decisive and very rapid campaign. It would not be until the Reconstruction War that the Falklands Islands changed hands, transferring to the new state that absorbed Argentina and the rest of South America; the remnants of Britain, now folded into the Atlantic Federation, decided that it was simply impractical to continue holding the Falklands and evacuated the survivors of the Type S. Influenza and willingly sold the islands to the new state."

"Very solid analysis, it appears you've done your 20th-century homework on this one. I find this might be a hard act to follow, so let's see if Diane can do better."

Diane stood as was expected, though a bit of a lead knot in her stomach simply presaged the worry that she felt. Her choice for a topic would have been Uroboros but it had already been taken. It took her a second to realize that all the material presented so far had been A.D. Or C.E. History, nothing in particular from the Magi history. It only took a half second for her to remember a history lesson she had stumbled upon when researching another project, a history lesson she had willingly read and watched holovids for simply because she thought the soldier involved was interesting and incredibly brutal in how he did his mission. Another second later, she had her angle prepared and began.

"Ma'am, I realize nobody else in here has done Star League or Magi incidents, so I'd like to try my hand at it with your permission."

"Name your subject," the instructor requested.

"The MD500 Rebellion."

The Instructor low-whistled at her choice. "You are pushing some buttons with that one, especially in this unit. Give it a shot, see how you do."

"I believe the Emperor's response was an action that truly blurs the line between expediency and decisiveness. The day after the incident was initially reported, a bidding war began between the three branches of the Magi military with all three positions vying for the honor of crushing the rebellion. Despite the outcome of the bidding process, the Emperor did not send in the Bladesmen that had won the right to challenge the rebels. The expediency comes in on the fact that he made his move extremely quickly, especially when compared to his decision process on other conflicts such as the Quarter War or Operation Moonlight Thunderbolt, decisions which took eight or ten days or more. Three days after the incident began, the Emperor sent in one man to do the job, a move which was accused of everything up to and including cronyism in the press in the days after, though everything I could find down the event timeline shows less and less complaining about his decision as the weeks went on."

The instructor nodded, so far impressed by her analysis. "Pretty reasonable so far, it's very clear you did your homework as well. Continue please, like to see how far you go with your analysis."

"The decisive solution came in place when the naval blockade was set up around the planets being held by the rebels and the Emperor's one-man wrecking crew took to the field. The first three days of combat on the first planet proved one very shortsighted decision on the part of the rebels. 500 manned Mobile Suits and 9000 unmanned Mobile Dolls would have provided an excellent defense against any Magi mobile forces sent to deal with them, with the possible exception of suborbital bombardment from warships. Those same Mobile Suits and Mobile Dolls provided no defense and almost no offensive capabilities against a lone wizard shocktrooper and armor sniper, which is exactly who the Emperor sent to do the job. Without an effective capability to challenge or even defend against a one-man mass annihilation assault, the rebels involved in taking the planets learned exactly why the Emperor himself spoke vehemently against the use of Mobile Dolls in warfare: the dehumanization of their methods of warfare rendered them extremely vulnerable to attack by a high-powered combat wizard. One man, six weeks of combat, 7000 Mobile Army kills. It doesn't get any more decisive than slowly disassembling a rebellion live on interdimensional television, complete with color commentary, blow-by-blow instant analysis from retired military personnel and even some color commentary from the Emperor himself."

"If you've gone this far, I think you have a little more to go," Instructor Foppies prompted.

"All the rebellion accomplished was to prove the Emperor correct: Mobile Dolls are not the answer to warfare. The decisive effect of the campaign went a lot farther than simply the involved planets. The use of Mobile Dolls in battle became a clear stigma and a dishonor to any Magi officer that considered deploying them for battle. Remaining Mobile Dolls in Magi inventory were demilitarized and either sold off or modified for industrial use. The civilian massacres caused by these soulless weapons on six planets is the first and loudest reason why Magi forces did not use these weapons and make it a point to destroy them at every occasion possible. If any one lesson can be considered the loudest in terms of decisiveness, it is an echo of an old Magi euphemism: when the Emperor says don't do something, don't bloody do it."

The instructor was quiet for almost a half minute, a process and a length of time that caused a resurgence of Diana's initial fears. "In this case, I won't dock you for cleaning up the end euphemism you capped your performance with, mainly because you got the point across just as clearly." Only then did Diana start breathing easy again. "Excellent presentation. You may be seated."

"Hell yeah girl, about time you get some props in this class," Wes said from the seat immediately behind her. Diana simply answered him with a thumbs up gesture; she was trying to minimize encouraging him, since he seemed to have a penchant for hitting on her when he wasn't hitting on a couple other ladies in the class.

Instructor Foppies looked around the other students in the class, then nodded twice. "I hope every one of you paid attention and took notes on her presentation, her delivery and her depth of facts. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I expect from each and every one of you in terms of in-depth analysis and clear presentation. The subject matter is irrelevant in this case; she could have done the exact same thing on any other subject presented and scored just as well if she had provided the same breadth of analysis and completeness of facts. I expect the same thing from the rest of you, in the Friday morning class. Those of you who have presented already, break out those research passes and revamp your existing presentations. Keep in mind that history is meaningless unless you understand it, and if you don't understand it you will be repeating it, just like the clueless jackwagons running certain governments down below are doing right now." From those that had a dislike of the Earth Alliance, there was a small ration of snickering in response to her comment.

"Fuck, so much for sleep tonight," Wes said to nobody in particular.

"Class dismissed."

-x-x-x-

(19 August C.E. 72, 1630 Hours Orb Time (UTC-11))

(Seaside Orphanage, Southeastern Onogoro Island, Emirate of Orb)

Kira watched the terminal in his room with a lack of clear attention to what was showing. Cagalli was scheduled to make an announcement on a new position of the government, so he wanted to watch and make sure that it wasn't something that would cause her problems in the long run. Though technically not in the military, Orb was his homeland and he happened to be a Mobile Suit pilot – arguably one of the best, and that put him on the playing field in terms of political or military maneuvering.

He wasn't paying attention to the television out of boredom, but of duty. Cagalli's conference was not scheduled to begin until 1700, and before that he had received a packet of documents from the Orb Ministry of Intelligence. The combined document was always the same: 10 pages of warnings about what the Orb government would do to the reader if these documents were misused or leaked to somebody that should not have access to them. The rest of the document, which had occasionally been as little as one page, was the actual intelligence information that he had to ponder and occasionally write analysis or opinion about.

Colonel Ledonir Kisaka had made an arrangement with the senior staff of the _Archangel_: the ship would be hidden, it would be officially disavowed by the government, and all members of the crew would be quietly folded into Orb society. It was a silent sendoff for a ship that went a long way to preventing a nuclear holocaust in space and a kinetic holocaust on Earth. For more than a small portion of the members of the ship, they did not want out of the military sphere, especially given that it was obvious from minute one that a second war was not just simply likely, but nearly inevitable. Kira knew this fact very well: he had gone blade-to-blade with the Mendel second in command more than once, and from what he could feel from said officer, Mendel would never back down against the Earth Alliance. Thus, the _Archangel_ stood ready to defend the beleaguered homeland at a moment's notice, and Kira counted himself as the warship's primary mobile offensive unit.

The intelligence documents laying before him on the table spoke of ominous clouds on the horizon. Though exact figures were not listed, it was readily apparent to Orb Intelligence that every nation on planet and in space was increasing the size of its military forces. The document assumed that the Earth Alliance had the largest increases by pure numbers, though Mendel was growing the largest by percentage. Kira suspected as much, especially given that Magi government entities were all military forces as was mandated by their governing document. The shocking part of the intelligence was not really from Mendel, ZAFT, or even the Earth Alliance, but was from the other nations on planet, all of which were also growing their armies by leaps and bounds. The lowest growth rate happened to be in Orb, though the definition of 'low' was still above 3 percent even for Orb.

To Kira's highly trained mental abilities and analysis skills, the actions being taken seem to be simply a repeat of World War II, only on a far larger scale and a far faster scale. Where the world prior had two decades of posturing and arms races, Kira's personal estimate was no more than two years, with all likelihood showing less than one year before the second round began. It frustrated him to the core to see such senseless mistakes repeated again, but he knew his limitations and one man could not stop this from happening. There simply was no one thing he could do, or series of things, that would derail the war. Anything he did was likely only to make the end result of the war worse, especially if he acted preemptively.

-x-

"Hurry along, children, Representative Cagalli will be on shortly," Lacus Clyne prompted the kids while she basically herded them toward the room with the television.

"Yay! Princess Cagalli!"

"We get to hear the Princess! Yeah!"

"Princess Cagalli! Princess Cagalli!"

Days at the orphanage passed very differently for Lacus than did her days as a pop star. Rather than making money and entertaining masses, she now made house and entertained children – when she wasn't enforcing some discipline and seeing to their school lessons, as was needed from time to time. The war left a lot of children with no parents, or no known family, and some of the Orb orphans came under the purview of Kira's orphanage. The "Pink Princess" loved the change of pace, living outside the limelight and caring for children that would otherwise have nowhere to go gave her heart peace.

She followed the children into the main theater room, but made sure to stop at the adjacent bedrooms shared by Commander Mu and Captain Ramius. She knocked twice on the Captain's door, then dropped her message: "Captain, Lady Cagalli will be on shortly," she said barely loud enough to be heard inside the room. After a few seconds without an answer, she decided it would be prudent not to press the issue and simply moved on to rejoin the kids.

The floor plan of the house was not overly complex, in all reality it was far less complex than her family's manor in the PLANT colonies, but there was enough blind turns that she lost sight of the kids until she arrived at the theater room and saw them entering. Lacus was the last to enter the room, though unlike the kids was not surprised to see Kira at one of the desks in the room. She also wasn't surprised when he acknowledged her presence without even so much as looking at her. "Afternoon, Lacus," he said without even looking away from the documents he was looking at.

"More intelligence analysis?" She asked after realizing what the stripes on the folder the documents were in actually meant.

"More of the same as it always is," Kira half-complained before he flipped closed the folder. "The world is heading for war, and there's nothing we can do to stop it."

"Is it just... Mendel?"

"It's everyone, now. The Equatorial government just placed a large bid with Morgenroete to begin development of their own Mobile Suit facilities, possibly even including manufacture." Kira sighed mightily; being a veteran of the first war, he could see all too well what was coming and exactly how bloody it would be. The resignation of knowing he could not stop it was far more painful to him than knowing how bloody it would be.

For Lacus, it was a simple task to recognize that Kira was hurting inside; it was times like these, realizations like the documents in front of them, that brought back memories of his deceased comrades and friends. Despite having lived a Pop superstar lifestyle, Lacus maintained no illusions: she could help, but only time would completely heal the scars he had received from those losses. It was the same for her, she had lost friends and she had lost her father all to the ongoing war effort, and she knew those losses could never truly be replaced.

She did know she could comfort him, just as he comforted her when the days dragged on and she felt her losses greater than before. Without word, she simply reached around him and embraced the Gundam pilot from behind. It was a silent gesture she found always to be more reassuring than any word or combination of words she could think of.

The hug lasted for over a minute before Kira said a word. "Thank you, Lacus."

"Can you stop it after it starts?"

"I don't know. I can only hope."

"We'll do what we can," Lacus said firmly but quietly

-x-

"Thinking something?" Commander La Flaga asked in the silence after Murrue turned off the television.

"I think it's doable," she answered evenly. "Deterrence is what kept The Cold War from going hot. Don't say this around the kids," meaning Kira and Lacus, "but I think if enough of the world arms up, the Earth Alliance may not decide it's in their best interests to start a war. They have to know they're not going to win in space, maybe enough force on planet can stop them before they start."

"Peace through superior force of numbers? That's an interesting take on ways to stop the war."

Murrue simply nodded in response to her boyfriend's appraisal of her idea. Both officers sipped at her experimental coffee brew; Commander Waltfeld had been teaching Murrue how to brew her own coffee mixes and in the months of practice she had been gaining an appreciation for experimentation. So far most of her attempts had been less than stellar, though today's brew had turned out pretty respectable. Mu, of course, would not admit that he occasionally used some Bailey's Irish Cream to 'augment' some of her experiments to make them more bearable.

"Would be nice if we could stop this one before it began." Even to herself, Murrue's wish sounded fairly hollow.

"Kira is right, you know. Mendel will not back down if anything serious happens. Once that begins, the only way it will stop is if it burns out. Magi are not exactly famous for restraint, even among themselves."

"Neither is Blue Cosmos," Murrue said with a gusty sigh to follow. "It's like listening to an 80-year-old and a teenager argue over what is right and proper in the world. Let's just hope I'm right and everyone realizes what a huge mistake it would be to start a war right now."

It would be long after the fact that she realized such strategies of deterrence historically only applied to nuclear warfare, not conventional warfare or mobile warfare.

-x-x-x-

(3 June SL2-12, 1045 hours Terran Standard Time)

(Multimage Reference 0 Dimension (Home Dimension))

(Office of the Empress of the Multimage Star Empire)

"Okay, we have the time, date and location figured out," Division Commander Stan Agrippa summarized the past fifteen minutes of debate. "Now, what do we do about it? If this is supposed to be our great ticket to a Pyrrhic victory at Ragnarok, we need to stoke the fire into a raging inferno of suck for the other side."

"Finally, the 'useful' Stan is on deck," Division Commander Gerard Caecilius commented wryly. "How much and where?" He asked of the main presenter for this meeting.

"The problem is that we have to do this only to a certain extent. If we shoot too low we fail to achieve the necessary results, too much and we poison the waters," Executor Hotaru Tomoe circumscribed the bounds of the plan. "First, a military boost is in order. These must be forces that will remain in location, preferably forces that won't be missed if they turn up MIA."

"Slight problem with that Hotaru, even a complete screw-off formation such as the _Mjolnr_ is missed," Empress Rini Atrebas pointed out fairly.

"They were trying to clean out the deadwood in the Admiralty, Empress," Gerard replied. "Though, even without such a lofty goal they probably would have raised a few ears regardless. Certainly Stan's and mine, for obvious reasons."

"What about assembling units out of the driftwood?" the Empress asked. "Every unit has a few clowns they want to be rid of. Not necessarily the deadwood, just the guys that don't quite fit."

Gerard's jaw popped before he could answer, a sound that caused everyone in the room two wince. When the kink was worked out, he continued. "We've tried to avoid doing that for a reason, Empress. A unit comprised of the screwoffs of the Empire might be technically competent, it might even be veteran or elite, but I wouldn't want to command it."

"And as we all know, Gerard would command a dirty dozen carrying buckets of spit in a charge on the gates of Hell," Stan added. "Unfortunately, though, I have to agree with the Empress here, old man. If we have to give up personnel, best it be from the ranks that others don't want for one reason or another, or at best orphaned personnel. However, we can assemble units out of veteran-rated or elite-rated oddballs and degenerates just as easily as we can do deadwood." Stan looked up to the ceiling-mounted speaker. "Ai?"

"Compiling a list now, Division Commander," the artificial intelligence entity for the administration building replied curtly. "It will take about twenty hours to compile and sort through all entries. Are there any parameters?"

"Hotaru?" Empress Atrebas asked.

"No Mages, rated or unrated," Hotaru said. "For now, they will not have wizardry. They will find it soon enough. Preference that any candidates of the selection process not have a relative within two generations with mage skills, civilian or combat."

"Doable, but it wipes out about 98 percent of the candidates," the AI responded.

"Do it," Rini ordered. "So we send technology only, infantry only. I have no qualms against that."

"What about Gerald?" Stan asked. "You know as much about him as I do, Empress."

Hotaru remained silent, looking at the whiteboard with her graphic illustrations of the arrangement of parallel dimensions in this scenario. "He returns home," Rini decided. "That will not complicate matters?"

"No," Hotaru replied evenly. Thankfully, her voice did not betray what she knew would happen (or, technically, _has happened_). "No, that would be preferable. Among the command staff, he is the only one who would not make the leap of imagination to walk away from the Empire and begin anew."

"Mainly because he knows a goodly portion of this Empire's dark secrets," Stan commented, which caused Gerald to raise an eyebrow in question.

"Okay, he comes home, my orders," Rini declared. "What is the predominant form of warfare in these locations, Hotaru?"

"Mobile Warfare, to a fare-thee-well," Hotaru replied. "Some of their designs would give the old collections of Star League-era MS a run for the money, even despite the technical advantages we have."

"Nice," Gerard replied. "I always like a challenge, and machine warfare is my challenge." It was often said that the first Emperor had lured Gerard Caecilius out of Durgan with the promise of battle and training, but Gerard had creamed himself when he first saw a RX-79[G] Ground Combat Gundam in action. Thereafter, Gerard was inseparable from the machines of war, and to good cause.

"Plenty of that exists where we shall go," Hotaru commented pensively. "This being said, the bulk of the force needed is not mobile army, but infantry. The existing forces and their allies will have little trouble turning the enemy machines into scrap, but for three relatively tiny nations they lack the infantry power to hold what lands they take."

It was the ancient crux of warfare: cavalry or armor could take land (and Mobile Suits counted as cavalry since they were technically walking tanks), but they could not hold land per se. Any kind of determined infantry attack against a Mobile Suit was liable to turn Mobile Suits into salvage, a counter-intuitive result in all reality. A Mobile Suit could kill a few infantry with ease, even sometimes dozens or hundreds, but against thousands of infantry the little guys would eventually win. The disparity only became more skewed when Battle Armor or Armored Infantry became involved; sometimes a kill ratio of two, three Mobile Suits to one Armored Infantryman had been reported back during the Star Empire Wars. Such is the reason why no Mobile Army force ever did battle without supporting infantry, at least among the Magi.

"Noted, Lady Hotaru," the AI replied. "I will have a list assembled in an hour, now that I have filtered down the results to only a few billion personnel. What is the maximum force constraint?"

"Everything must fit on or in one _Phalanx_-class ship," Rini offered as the upperbound. "That will be enough?"

"That is what is needed," Hotaru replied. "I recommend five galaxies of Battlemechs, one of Gundams, three of mixed MS and Gundams, two galaxies straight MS, two of Aerofighters, one of conventional air, three of ground armor, and at least thirty-five as Mechanized Infantry."

"Holy shit," Gerard breathed. "That's two Legion formations and a little extra. We don't use that kind of force on one planet, ma'am."

"You will need to," Hotaru answered coldly. "The density of forces on planet is eight times greater than Magi forces. Whole enemy divisions will guard areas that you would normally have a Cluster command. They will use their advantage in numbers to skew the odds against us."

"Fun times," Stan commented with an evil smile. "Or, as Commandos like to call it, a 'target-rich environment'. Okay, we got the party animals, now what do we do for kegs?" The Division Commander of Commandos was not referring to a frat-house party, but the logistical challenge of operating far away from home.

"Food should not be a problem, there are sufficient local sources already available. Repair parts for the units, ammunition aplenty. We can salvage some of the enemy weapons and munitions for our purposes, but most of their gear is sub-standard at best, laughable at worst."

"Better stock up on 300-rated Engines," Gerard commented, reciting an old quartermaster's lament among the Magi. Spare 300-rated fusion engines worked wonders, as they could be modified to fit in 100-ton battlemechs and fighters, 75-ton battlemechs with certain speed brackets, 60-ton battlemechs with higher speed requirements, 50-ton fast-leg battlemechs and 30-ton ultra-fast scout machines. All that needed changing was the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) charge generator and distribution harnesses, ironically the most costly components on the engine itself, and the engine could be retasked to any size or application needed. (x)

"And armor plate," Stan replied in kind. "Beans, bullets, and toilet paper. Call it the remainder of the _Phalanx_ space for that?"

"That and four partial Jumpships," Hotaru commented. "We will be taking along, erm, some useful civvies."

"Such as?" Empress Rini asked.

"A contingent from Hessian Industrial Systems, TelStar Engines, Heilsen Shipyards, and Optifree Energy Technologies. They can set up shop on the moon or in the colony cluster we are headed to. I've already arranged that much through the companies, they're going through vetting procedures as we speak."

"I hope you kept the information minimal," Stan said.

"The present CEO of Hessian is my fifth daughter," Hotaru replied. "I told her part of the story, but the others only know what they need to know: it is detached service, it is a one-way trip, it will be completely off the books, and it is operationally critical as per the request of an Executor. And once the two selves shall meet, the resulting merger will be significant."

"And they didn't kick you out on the spot?" Rini asked in surprise.

"Certainly not. It may be off the books for now, but when the lines intersect there will be, erm, shall we say a corporate merger at that time. Given that much, they can probably guess that some skewing of time will be involved but how much or for what reason is impossible to guess. And, given the scale of time involved, the expansion factor is going to be immense."

"Like, the Hessian Weapons that goes with will turn out to be bigger than now by double?" Gerard offered as a guess.

"Oh, no, not even close," Hotaru commented as she made some notes on the diagram she had already drawn on the whiteboard. "The Hessian Weapons Mendel Division, when parallel to now, will be so large as to outstrip the entire manufacturing capacity of the Multimage Empire, and Hessian won't be the largest firm there. Provided we can make it work as is needed, I daresay. Otherwise, we're all screwed."

"We're all screwed anyways, so let's get down to unscrewing ourselves and making things right," Empress Rini declared coldly.

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Author's Chapter Afterword:

Another day, another inch closer to the next scrap. Mostly, this is due to the ongoing necessities of the changing political winds among the various nations. For today, everyone is determined to enjoy the peace, for tomorrow obviously will not be so peaceful.

The first and loudest of the changes today is in ZAFT. Durandal knows clearly his Destiny Plan is sunk, but even in that failure the Mendel forces have given him an instantaneous secondary path to change the fate of the world. The advanced genetics modifications and artificial gestation systems so loved by the Magi are the perfect solution to ZAFT's inherent population problems, and with reduced inhibitions against genetic modification this creates a perfect scenario for explosive population growth and expansionism if done correctly. Coupled with the promise of interplanetary and interdimensional travel, Durandal is betting on being able to basically out-breed the other nations in the long run; when applied to the traditional military strengths of ZAFT, this creates the scenario under which an individually powerful but numerically insignificant military force suddenly becomes not so numerically insignificant.

The Emirate Of Orb is playing a different game for most of the other parties, less intent on interplanetary travel than they are intent on securing their status on Earth. You see the beginnings of such movements in this chapter, as they move to and begin rebuilding Heliopolis with the assistance of the Mendel Colony Construction Corporation. Herein, you see Orb playing three games: they build for themselves, they build for the purpose of providing shipping and docking to all players major and minor, and they play political footsie with a Mendel major corporation to achieve both of the above. Theirs is the most stable of all games, but the necessary sacrifice in their position is little reward for little risk. All things considered, it is not a bad position they take, especially given the amount of damage they took at the hands of the Earth Alliance.

Not much is shown of the Earth Alliance, mainly because they will have their major heydays in coming chapters. For now, I leave it up to your imagination what manner of nefarious plans they are designing and putting into motion. The terrorist bomb in Mendel's shipping line was a rogue act by Blue Cosmos. You can expect to see reprisals for that action next chapter; Special Operations forces do not particularly like the actions of terrorists, especially against their homeland.

All things being equal though, you have not yet seen much of the Destiny cast in this story. Expect that to change next chapter; Armory One is now open for business, and ZAFT has new recruits and new projects to begin work on. Of course, the Earth Alliance has their own special projects and special intentions to see to; given how prominently certain players in certain ships showed up in the first version of this story, one can reasonably expect that those personnel might show up in this version of the story. I will leave it up to your guessing and your desires as to who shows when and why and what happens to them. I find that to be one of the fun parts of writing fan fiction: the more people review, the more ideas I get and more inspiration I have to take certain paths.

And then there is the stark contrast between the main body of the story and the Stinger at the end. Things are looking severely grim in the lands of the Cosmic Era, but by all visible intentions things look like they will take an extremely bloody turn courtesy of the interference by a Star League Executor. This is by intention: with the necessity of fighting the war Ragnarok and the great desire to ensure that something meaningful survives such a war, extreme solutions are a necessity. While this may seem to be almost a game-breaker in and of itself, any of my long-term readers can look at you and tell you the this is not a favor being done for anybody. Just as in the Final Fantasy story arc of my AAA story, having a massively upscaled army does not necessarily make the battle any easier for the so-called good guys in the story. It simply means I have to throw a larger enemy force at them, or in this case it means they will be fighting a far larger enemy force very likely on their home turf. Oh my, this is starting to sound like shades of the first version of this story; there may be a reason for that. Of course, the bigger the foe equates to the larger the reward and usually in my stories a larger reward comes in the form of yet a larger enemy to kick the crap out of. There is no such thing as rest for the righteous.

Those of you who have been longtime readers know that my present progress on any or all of my stories has been very lackluster, even by my standards. This is due in large part to real-life circumstances which have changed significantly over the past couple months and have indirectly limited my ability to conduct writing for any length of time. On the other hand, this has also forced me to move ahead with my plans to implement and begin using voice recognition software to do my writing. The bulk of this chapter was my first foray into using voice recognition to write out a full-length chapter and narratives at the end of the chapter. In the past, I have used voice recognition in small part in the Archangel's Amazing Adventures, though such actions only lasted about one chapter before I broke with them. My intention this time around is not to give up on such usages, mainly because the rate of advancement in the narrative is nearly 3 times faster than when I type it out manually. This, on the gauge being that I am not particularly a slouch in typing; in terms of technical skills and especially computer commands, I have a typing rate of nearly 40 wpm by manual typing, though in comparison the entirety of the length of this paragraph took me no longer than a single Ozzy Osborne song with a short pause to execute a shell command on a mainframe computer I was working on.

I find myself rather hoping that I do score the potential promotion that I have applied for at work. If I do get it, it will be a good opportunity to get back on a more regular typing and writing schedule. It will also mean harder duties for my employment, though it would be a major career move in the direction I've always intended. If I do get the promotion, don't hold out high expectations for immediate continuation of my fiction, as I will have a lot to learn in this new position, and the unstated expectation of the physician is that I learn and learn quickly. The way things have been going, there isn't much room for screw off conduct in industry nowadays.

The rest I leave to your imagination for a day. And I know these are very active imaginations, so I expect very active and very useful results, the more ideas the batter. User input is, as always, appreciated and may be used for ideas.

NEXT UP: Blue Cosmos learns exactly how much of a bitch payback can be, while the machinations between the large states continues. Much as Kira expects, the world is marching towards a very nasty repeat of the first war. How fast it shall get there, only a few persons know.

ATTENTION: I have the first section of a planned to sections of a historical briefing on the existence and the influence of the Star League. This is certainly not an inclusive document, it is only meant to give the reader an idea of what the existence of the Star League is and how it came to be, and how it holds such powerful influence over a Star Empire that has a theoretical physical span greater than the potential habitable star systems in our Milky Way galaxy. Please look below the footnotes for the first section of this document.

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Review Replies: EIGHT reviews for the first chapter of this story! That is far more response than I ever expected on an opening chapter!

**Nightblader1021**: much thank you for the complement. The buildup for this story will take several chapters, but you can expect some serious fighting shortly.

**Takeshi Yamato**: I hope this chapter provides a little more clarity as to what the Magi intend and how they planned to go about it. Another point of interest is the fact that Durandal's plan is already destroyed, but he's already working on a secondary plan and this one has all the markings of being even more underhanded but not necessarily interfering with other countries.

**Manta Arms 1989**: to properly answer your question, more than a few of the Destiny characters will make a showing in this story. Several of them may even be considered integral to the plot.

**Necroblade**: always a pleasure to receive a review from a veteran reader, and always thank you for the assistance with beta work.

On your overarching point about the length of time, you can rest assured that time will not be especially nice to Mendel or to any of the other nations involved.

**Knightowl 4183**: yes, in the series proper, Sutherland would not have said that. That being said, this story is well past the point of alternate universe, we're now talking multiple alternate parallel dimensions interacting. New concepts, such as the principle of God-Mod are not entirely impossible for a metrosexual Earth Alliance officer to understand, especially when said Officer has in his possession a Magi bondsman that is not afraid to use the above mentioned phrase when discussing the principles of heavy firepower in a design.

Keep it real on the forums, and I shall look over what you post and reply as appropriate.

**Deathzealot**: Again, a welcome review from a veteran reader.

I would like to thank you for the in-depth analysis you gave to my version of Sutherland; I agree with you that he was more than just a bit of an asshole in the series, but I do have to give credit where due and he is at least an intelligent asshole in command of a very large swath of the Earth Alliance naval forces.

On the error you mentioned, Natarle is appropriately ranked as a rear admiral.

I tried the modification you mentioned for Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries, and it is a very devastating design in short battles, but it lacks the longevity or the hard-hitting stopping power necessary to survive the longer campaign battles. Still in all, for embarrassing the hell out of Solaris 7 Mechwarriors, it is a top-notch unit.

**Jalmillategui (ANON Review)**: I gather from your reply that you have been a long time reader of this series. Welcome to the party, and thank you for the review. I hope this chapter makes a worthy extension in the manner you expect.

**Etienne Of The West Wind**: another returning veteran reader, you have my thanks for the short input. Yes, as you may have guessed the four girls will have a significant role to play in coming chapters. And your gut instinct about ominous signs coming courtesy of the Stinger should be adroitly reinforced by the Stinger on this chapter. Of course, when I say ' ominous things', I mean that in more than one fashion and at more than one level. I did not make it a habit of giving freebies in prior stories, and I do not intend to begin so doing now.

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The Gripe Sheet:

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Footnotes:

(1): **G**enetic **A**dvanced **R**eproductive **M**edical **R**esearch And **D**evelopment.

(2): **Canister Farm** is common Magi Eugenics slang for the part of a eugenics facility that houses and supports the iron wombs in which the eugenically-bred children are gestated.

(3): **R**ules **O**f **E**ngagement, the instructions that dictate how troops handle enemies, neutrals, and allies in combat.

(4): **N**oise **F**lash Distraction **D**evice

(x): Battletech provides for the same rating of fusion engine to power multiple sizes of unit. Using the example above, the 300-rated engine fits into over 20 unit combinations of size/speed just among battlemechs and aerospace units.

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LOGIC AND REASON: The Star League, Second Star League, and the Executors

"If ever a reason to be thankful, these days are a good reason. We finally stand upon a position where we can finally end the wars, and do so without massacre or capitulation. The latter is the main selling point: I want the wars to end, I do not want to sacrifice our freedoms, our worlds, or our honor to achieve such a goal. To end it at the cost of our sovereignty is no victory, only another form of defeat."  
>—Emperor Atrebas, year 1525 of the Star Empire Wars<p>

The existence of the Star League is itself part paradox and part creative solution to an ongoing nightmare scenario between the six Star Empires that controlled the bulk of known space. The formation of a governmental coalition between the major and minor Star Empires provided the basis under which the ongoing and never completely understood conflict between Empires could be reduced or eliminated. However, the first Star League would only provide a temporary respite in the war, it would be the Second Star League that provided for true peace between the Star Empires.

NOTE: This historical reference will be released in two parts, with the second part in the next chapter.

FIRST STAR LEAGUE: Glittering Moon, Silver Millennium, Crimson End

**GLITTERING MOON**: "A Home away from home."

The first Star League began its life as nothing more than a prefecture on the moon of an out-of-the-way dimensional instance of the home planet of humans, Earth. In the history of this planet and its moon, ancient wizard-trained persons had come to a disagreement between themselves as to what structure and order should be enacted on planet, and what involvement the various wizard groups should have in that structure. Before the dispute could reach a point of war, the various societies of wizards split into nine factions, with two of those factions remaining on planet and the other seven taking residence on the moon. Through a combination of hard work, exceptional wizardry skills, and a healthy dose of human ingenuity, the wizards on the moon terraformed the moon into a livable planetoid, though not without many difficulties of resources, atmosphere, and even living conditions. With this undertaking finally accomplished, the various groups of wizards and normal persons separated themselves by societies and nations to prevent an all-out and very destructive war.

Decades spanned into centuries of divided societies, centuries became millennia, and along the way the existence of the other side the equation became legend in each society. As the societies expanded, the various groups of wizards became disillusioned with contact to the nations on the other world. Both sides continued expanding their nations and improving their worlds, relatively oblivious of the existence or expansion of the other. It would be this self-imposed divide that created the stage for conflict between Earth and the moon, but not before a new factor was added to the equation.

Executor Sora Takenouchi, the second of six Executors known as the First Six, accidentally teleported herself between dimensions and landed on the moon in year 2273 of the the Lunar Calendar. Though initially assumed to be a Goddess, she was able to convince the citizens of the Duchy of Esperians that she was neither divine nor a threat to themselves or any of the other Lunarian Nations. Though by trade a wanderer, Sora took up residence in the duchy for the simple exchange of assisting the nation in its traditional duty to the residents of the moon of maintaining the atmosphere artificially created around the moon by magic. Given her skill in spell craft, the maintenance and normalization of the atmosphere around the moon ceased being a problem for the residents, where in past years the atmosphere had grown so thin it was almost unbreathable.

As decades and centuries passed on the moon, Sora gained notoriety among the nations on the moon as an incredibly powerful and benevolent wizard in her own right. Despite the necessities of her job, which sometimes had her returning home thoroughly drenched in the blood of others, the peoples of her home world came to know her as the Crystal Queen. As her personal power and skill with wizardry increased, she began taking on the planetary support tasks traditionally executed by the other nations. With each task subsumed, the quality of life and proliferation of common wizardry skills increased across the moon. By lunar year 3171, she engineered a plan under which she could strip out the uncertainty of life on the moon by creating a magical temple that would maintain the atmosphere and resources necessary for life on the moon without the need for intervention by any other wizards.

A million wizards and 10 times that in common men and women contributed time, stones, spell craft, engineering insight, and finances to the project. The structure was built and readied for its ultimate purpose by the second harvest of lunar year 3174. 5000 of the best wizards from around the planetoid assisted Executor Takenouchi in the necessary spell craft to actually make the temple do what was needed. Six months of preparation, runic inscriptions, and a large amount of research culminated in 1330 Man-hours of enchantments that made permanent and automatic the spell craft that first made the planetoid inhabitable. It would not be long before Sora became a planetary hero, and thereafter a political force among the seven nations in her own right. It would also not be long before her battle skill and strategic acumen was put to the test in defense of her homeland.

Sora's effort to permanently enshrine the magic necessary for life on the moon had a very unpleasant side effect. While she was used to being sensed by the denizens of neighboring nations when she used her spell craft, her actions, when used in concert with the group of 5000 mages, were easily sensed by the mages still living on the planet below. The Lunarian existence long reduced to rumor, the sudden and very powerful indicator of habitation on the moon set off a very unwelcome reaction among the populace of Earth. The feuding nations of Earth had long ago burned out their capacity for war and fell one by one to neighbors and aggressors, culminating in a coup de Main campaign that created a planetwide empire ruled by an oligarchy of wizards. Convinced of their superiority and dominion over all of humanity, the oligarchs took the news of residents on the moon as an affront to their power and quickly deemed that they needed to assert their authority over the Lunarians. Expedition forces were assembled and wizards were assigned to move those forces on to the moon by teleportation and Gate spell to begin a full-scale invasion.

By and large, the lunar wizards were not trained for combat. Militia forces existed in each town, and though effective within limits, it became very clear very quickly that the forces from Earth were far superior in battle. Executor Takenouchi again earned her reputation on the moon as a hero by being able stymie their initial penetrations, though it became very quickly evident that the enemy was using too large a force of numbers for one wizard to stop. By mutual consensus, Sora became the de facto commander of the surviving militia forces and the newly self-taught combat wizard core that was forming around the planetoid. Even with organization, however, their victories could not outweigh their losses; in less than three months of brutal combat, five of the seven lunar nations had fallen to the invading horde.

A new spot of hope came to the Lunarians in the form of an old soldier from another dimension. A wanderer in the same fashion that Executor Takenouchi wandered and solved problems, the new guy was also a powerful mage in his own capacity, though was not possessed of her official duties or her air of benevolence. Even more strangely, this newcomer requested no deference, no mercenary fees, no honors, no reward of any notable kind, just the right to train the Lunarians to defend themselves. Few of their ranks were skeptical of the newcomer, mostly due to the fact that his skills and power were not dissimilar from the Executor. The greatest oddity of the old soldier was his rank and name: Point Commander Erich Hess, a rank which he claimed designated him as nearly the lowest rank of soldier from his organization, and his name showed him as descended from mercenaries.

The combination of training and a second professional combat wizard again slowed the tide of advancing enemy forces, though this break was another temporary setback for the opponent. After another six months of dealing with the new threat, the invading horde was able to regain momentum by taking the sixth lunar nation and effectively surrounding the last enclave of resistance. Many calls and prayers went out for a miracle, even as the invaders closed ever closer to the final city being held by the Lunarians. Their prayers would be dutifully answered, but not by the beings and Gods that they prayed to. Upon what was supposed to be the final day of the siege, a message was delivered by the enemies to the guards at the Lunar Temple: surrender or face extermination. Knowing the Lunarians faced enslavement if they surrendered, they chose to resist to the end. It would be this decision that bought them a fateful 90 minutes that changed the course of the war.

As the enemy regiments closed on the final defensive positions of the Lunarians, the skies of Luna glowed cobalt blue with the streaks of naval particle projection cannon bolts fired from orbit around the moon. Unable to understand what was attacking their forces and slaughtering their soldiers whole battalions at a time, the invaders broke off their attack and routed under the hammering from space, though this would not be the nastiest shock they received on this day. When the hammering from space ended, the blue streaks were replaced with orange spots that reminded onlookers of meteorites. When the fiery descending objects reached a certain altitude, the objects broke apart to reveal massive machines of war and infantry wearing an armor of technology unseen on planet or Moon.

The wish of one had been answered: a far greater force than the invaders had come to stand in defense of the innocent. Executor Sora Takenouchi breathed easy when she recognized the symbols on the mysterious rescuers: the Multimage Star Empire had sent its best rapid reaction forces to cripple the invasion and free those captured and enslaved by the invaders. It was at this point that Point Commander Hess declared himself a member of their forces, and that he had acted unilaterally on the wish of Sora to break the invasion and return sovereignty to the moon.

Masters in the arts of Orbital Blitzkrieg and Hyperwar, the Magi forces struck the invading armies all across the surface of the moon almost simultaneously. No enemy force received more than 10 minutes of forewarning before they were engaged in battle, and often engaged by a force that was superior in firepower and mobility even despite the enemy numbers of wizards. Armored Infantry forces spearheaded the assault on the enemy swordsmen, augmented by Omnimech and ground armor forces and supported by aerofighter strikes and naval bombardment from space, a combination of force the Earth invaders were unprepared to meet or stop. Many of their forces were destroyed so quickly that no man escaped to tell the tale of what happened to their individual regiments and divisions. What took the earth invasion force nearly 9 months to capture took the Magi forces only 14 hours to reclaim.

The war did not end there. With Luna secured, the Magi turned their eyes planetside, where the invasion originated and where a goodly portion of the citizens of Luna had been taken to serve the purpose of slavery. After two counterattacks from Earth had been repulsed, a second assault force began the invasion of the planet below. The campaign on Earth took longer to execute, mainly due to terrain and distance factors, though in the end result was just as lethal as it was on the moon. Four days of hard fighting forced the wizard oligarchs on Earth to request a term of surrender. Without further need of bloodshed or further desire to waste resources on such a pitiable foe, the Magi accepted the term of surrender on their conditions. The oligarchy was allowed to remain in power, though they were to officially and publicly renounce all claims to territory on the moon and were ordered to repatriate all lunar citizens to their homeland with due compensation for time served in captivity that would have otherwise not been paid to them.

The end of the war hailed the Magi as interdimensional saviors and freedom fighters, and specifically elevated Executor Takenouchi to celebrity and heroine status among the Multimage Star Empire. It would be this celebrity status that she used to return the favor to the Magi and bring to close a war they were suffering.

**SILVER MILLENNIUM**: "Peace sells, but who is buying?" (Addendum joke: "Ammunition: always more profitable.")

Despite the swift and extremely lethal interdiction on Luna, the Magi forces themselves were suffering badly. Throughout their interdimensional empire, they had been at war for over 1500 years with a rotating coalition of other interdimensional Star Empires and countless more minor parties. Though they were considered the stalwarts of the ongoing war, and usually considered the likely party to win if something forced the conclusion of the war, the continual drag of combat and loss weighed heavily on their morale and resolve. Never did they speak of surrender, for they knew their opponents would rape and slaughter their way across the Magi worlds in such a case, but Sora could sense that the men and women of many races grew tired of continually defending themselves against annihilation. She only needed to look into the eyes of a 20-year-old infantryman to see that the most lethal infantrymen she ever knew were tired to the bone and soul of having to draw blade and fire gun.

With the invasion of her adopted homeland having been stopped and the process of rebuilding beginning all over the planetoid, Executor Takenouchi set about to begin a daring process that she hoped would result in ending the wars that have long plagued all of Existence. The process, naturally, began with the saviors of Luna: she took her proposal straight to the top of the Multimage Empire, the much feared and highly respected Emperor Atrebas. Her initial proposal was immediately and decisively struck down, as the Magi position was never to surrender and her intention would have been a veritable surrender with unilateral disarmament. Never one to be dissuaded by a single failure, Sora began revising her plan to be more acceptable to the Magi. It would be within the second trial and failure that she learned a valuable lesson from the Emperor: "trust in the honor of others, and others shall show you honor."

The differing philosophy from her homeland's belief of near-disarmament would become the linchpin of her third and final revision. Executor Takenouchi's rebuilt plan was simple: peace, but not at the cost of a nation's honor. No nation would be asked to disarm, the only arms reductions would be in the stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and (infrequent) antimatter weapons held by the nations. No nation would be asked to surrender to another, in that the necessity of peace would not come at the cost of humiliation or capitulation. No nation would be required to ask or give forgiveness for their prior actions, again another decision made to prevent humiliation or capitulation. Lastly, no nation would be required to give up land or planets for their signature, which was one of the major snags that prevented the Magi from signing (the other major point being disarmament).

Assured that she would have support of the Magi, she did not start with the Emperor; she took her request to the Praetor of the New Moon Star Empire, who readily signed off on an end to the war that did not force surrender or slaughter. While in the lands of the New Moon Star Empire, Sora was introduced to the Royal Water Gardens of New Terra, a clearly magicked garden with multiple water features that generated their own water and showed eloquence that Executor Takenouchi had never seen before. She made notes, assured that they could come of use some day.

Sora's second journey led her to the Great Warlord of the Dynasty, who hesitated no more than a minute on the issue before signing the treaty. His justification was simpler than that of the Praetor, in that their off-and-on foes in the Magi could easily flatten the Dynasty if they had the opportunity to conduct an all-out offensive, and an administered peace treaty would go a long way to preventing that nightmare from coming to reality. While in the lands of the Dynasty, she made notes on the internal layout of the Great Palace of the Dynasty, figuring the ancient architecture thereof served a valid purpose; specifically, the wide and sweeping corridors were not something she had seen in the other royal assemblies.

A third trip, and a third Empire, specifically the last of the 'neutral players' in the Star Empire Wars. The Illyaris Star Empire, masters of armor warfare and technology, welcomed her visit with open arms and her proposal with a waiting pen. For the twin Queens of the Illyaris, the problem was a bit more complex than for the other nations: having frequently sided with the forces that opposed the Magi, they had long suffered repeated counterattacks from the Magi and New Moon forces. On hotly-contested worlds between the Magi and Illyaris, public opinion was swinging wildly between support and rebellion against the war, and the Queens wanted an end to the constantly-shifting political and military battle lines. Her idea garnered from the Great Temples of the Illyaris would become the foundation of the rebuilt Lunar Environment Support Temple and later would be used as the model for the Monument Of The Executors.

A fourth destination took her into the stars and far away from any instance of Earth, as the King of the Dark Moon Star Empire was out campaigning against several of the smaller independent space nations that had been hounding his Empire of late. Though initially met with suspicion (and armed force), when she identified herself and her purpose they listened with intent. The King and his eldest Prince, accomplished Admirals of star fleets in their own right, immediately understood the potential of pulling the plug on the ongoing war against the Magi, and though a bit leery of the centralized alliance clauses of the Star League charter, readily accepted the cease-fire treaty. With the Dark Moon being an Oligarchy by structure, the proposal had to be ratified by the Upper Assembly of States, and Sora had the luxury of seeing the Oligarchy Chambers firsthand as the voting occurred. It would be a lesson she took to heart in planning the Star League facilities.

The fifth of the Star Empires she visited was the large unknown: the infamous Negaverse Star Empire, the true instigators and main driving force of the war in all reports on the subject. Sora had been received by their representative, Lady Katiara Zoisite, but her proposal fell flat from there onward. The Negaverse was not interested in peace with the Magi, and certainly not interested in a show of honor to their ranks. This sentiment was echoed by two other minor Lords of the Negaverse, and Sora knew that her mission had bombed in this location. Though her stay in the Palace of the Negaverse was short, she did pick up two major ideas for her administration building: the Teleport Hall, which prevented the use of a Gate or Teleport spell in the vicinity of the Negaverse Palace for purposes of a rapid assault, and the Promenade that led from the Teleport Hall to the palace proper, which prevented an easy assault on the palace by way of overwhelming the Teleport Hall guards.

Executor Takenouchi's final destination was where she started the process: the Multimage Star Empire. Again as in past visits, she had been received as would be royalty, mainly because of her status as one of the six known (and rightly feared) Executors. The Emperor of the Magi heard her renewed proposal and this time accepted it as written, given that Sora had taken his lesson to heart when revising it the last time. Sora did warn him that the Negaverse would not stand down, though he found this news unsurprising. From the Magi locations she saw, she took to heart the designs of their barracks facilities and the main Magi Administration Building, for their efficiency and structuring would be needed in the effective design of the new Star League facility.

With the charter signed and ready, Sora returned home to the rebuilding Luna and began her effort to build a facility worthy of the purpose she had planned. From the outset, her intention was large-scale; not of opulence, but of necessity was the facility planned to be nearly two miles square. The Lunarians immediately began their side of the preparations on the facility, with those persons and wizards available to the task sparing what effort they could when not working on rebuilding the decimated and sundered cities and lands on the Moon. It would not be long before the news of the projects and rebuilding on Luna reached throughout the signing Star Empires, and their initiative to take action was swift in the wake of the tale.

The arrival of engineers and architects from the undersigning Star Empires made the facility larger and more stylized to a facility that commanded the respect and admiration of five Star Empires. In this critical detail that all agreed upon, Sora was proven correct that the five Star Empires could and readily would work together if given a decent cause to do so. The plans were quickly finalized at a facility nearly four miles square, with each of the intended facilities and features scaled up by a factor of four in response to expected volume of traffic and the myriad of purposes that the Star League would be put to. Even in this re-planned equation, though, they undershot the true volume of activity that the Palace would see.

It would be this cooperation, begun as a case of one-upmanship on which Star Empire could outdo the others in the construction of the Star League palace, that would set the hallmark for the coming years. The necessities of working together, even if in indirect competition, became the spirit by which the Star league was built and would run. As the years passed, the trade and travel between the five Star Empires and thousands of smaller players would come to be known as the Silver Millennium, for the thousand years of peace and tranquility that reigned over the entirety of Existence.

**CRIMSON END**: "A red moon rising is a Bad Moon Rising. We will make this one rise crimson forevermore."

Though the rest of Existence was peaceful, the Multimage and Negaverse Empires never officially ended their segment of the war. After thirty years of off-and-on campaigning, the battle lines petered out of their own volition. Neither side acknowledged the other in terms of diplomacy, but neither side ran the major hundred-planet campaigns that were the hallmark of the Star Empire Wars. Neither side grew soft in their undeclared state of peace, but neither side actively sought the destruction of the other. Every few decades, a skirmish over a border world would flare up, proceed at a brisk clip, and burn out in a year or two, usually with an inconclusive result except for casualty and expenditure figures.

One of the other interesting happenings of the Silver Millennium was the Skirmish of Twycross, a Dark Moon attempt to make sure their naval forces did not grow rusty. In a pitched battle against the Magi forces in orbit around Twycross, a planet with little strategic and only minor resource value, the Dark Moon Naval Forces challenged a pair of _Phalanx_-class ships in a spirited battle for the planet. Six hours of combat led to a defeat for the Dark Moon forces, a surprising defeat given the aggressors outnumbered and out-massed the Magi by a significant degree. In the aftermath of the battle, the Magi returned the captured naval personnel to the Dark Moon by way of the Star League Palace as a transfer point, and polled the Star League Assembly not to censure or challenge the Dark Moon. The Magi's position was simple: "give them a hundred years to train up and try again. We shall be waiting."

The Second Skirmish of Twycross ended in five hours, again with a defeat of the Dark Moon forces. The matter was repeated every hundred years, almost to the day, and every time resulted in a defeat for the Dark Moon, except the sixth skirmish which ended in a draw and the eighth skirmish ended in a win for the Dark Moon. It would be this victorious fleet from the Eighth Skirmish that was rotated into the guard position for the Star League naval forces, and that victory would echo in a way in coming years after the skirmish. Only one more Naval Skirmish was fought after the Eighth, which again resulted in a loss for the Dark Moon, a reminder that the Magi do not remain defeated for long.

A thousand years came and went, a length of time not unknown to the Star Empires, and the partying for the continued peace was existence-wide. Even the Magi, stoic about such matters as celebrations, took a full week to commemorate the official beginning of the Star League era. New trade treaties were signed between the various major and minor players, with all parties expecting another thousand years of peace, profit, and honor under the semi-alliance. Before the partying even ended, that illusion would be dissipated.

20 September of the year SL1000 (year 4569 of the Magi history) was the day the Star League came under vengeful assault. The Negaverse silence over the prior centuries, their internal seething on being excluded from the Star League (a revisionist and porpagandist position – any scholar that studied Star league founding history know that they turned down multiple offers to join), all boiled over in one massive assault on Luna. The beginning of the invasion was also the debut of a frightening and strangely effective new tactic, where the High Lords of the Negaverse began using extremely powerful magical construct beings as a form of support and augmentation of conventional and armor forces involved in a battle.

The first target of these magical constructs were the naval forces in orbit around Luna. Three massive and nebulous Shadows were sent against two Dark Moon battle cruisers and one Magi Superdreadnought, to prevent a repeat of the Magi defense of Luna a thousand years prior. All three warships were felled at the cost of two of the massive Shadows, and extremely costly victory for the Negaverse given that the expectation was a Shadow monster would or should have had no problem destroying a single warship. Nevertheless, the one surviving Shadow proved instrumental in the campaign against the Star League Defense Force, in that it's massive destructive powers proved to be a very handy non-technologic fire support skill.

The Negaverse regulars suffered no difficulties in crushing the rebuilt cities and population of Luna; unlike the last party that tried invading the moon, these invaders took no prisoners and left no buildings standing: everything was destroyed, building by building, body by body, city by city. In less than 12 hours, the only surviving Lunarians resided in the Star League Palace, and were guarded by the remainder of the defensive forces. Herein, the Negaverse ranks planned properly for a long and very bloody siege action, with the knowledge that the Defense Forces would be able to stop cold any major single Blitzkrieg offense but were not prepared or equipped for a prolonged continuous-contact engagement.

The other major component of the Negaverse strategy was the denial of ready access to the various Lagrange points around Terra, and the denial of the ability to reinforce the Lunar Palace directly by way of wizards transporting extra forces inside their perimeter. This combination strategy proved exceedingly effective, in that the only way to reinforce was from the Zenith point, a minimum of five days travel assuming ready forces to rapidly react to such a threat. Negaverse naval forces deployed at strategic intervals and along the expected travel route provided harassment and interdiction for the inevitable counterattack from the Magi forces; many Negaverse warships and aerospace assets sold their lives dearly for two days of delay to allow the ground forces to complete the assault and utterly annihilate the population of Luna.

When the dust settled, the Negaverse achieved their objective almost to a man. Of the palace defenders, only one person was found alive by the responding Magi forces, though this was not officially reported. By the records, Luna was annihilated man for man; the one survivor went deep undercover in an extremely classified operation, even being listed as killed in action to protect his cover. Everybody else, civilian and military alike, had been struck down and left for the responders to find. The entirety of the campaign was nothing more than an over-large stunt to remind the Magi that the Negaverse was still alive and still unafraid to challenge their superiority. In the immediate days after the campaign concluded, cries came off from all over the Empire to renew the effort of war against the Negaverse, and redouble the efforts of centuries past to bring an end to the mass murderers by any means necessary.

In terms of delivering a message, the Negaverse clearly got their word through to the Magi. Wherein the Emperor of Magi was forced to personally bury his wife in the ruins of the Palace she built, there was no question as to the message being sent. For two weeks after the destruction of Luna, now known as the Seven Day Blitz, the Emperor was silent. Upon the 15th day, the Emperor spoke: "If they will deny peace to the rest of Existence, we shall deny them peace for as long as it takes to break their ability to wage war. Upon that day, many years into the future, when the last vestige of their magnificent combat power lays upon their worlds in ruin, we shall walk away as they did up on Luna and leave their remnants to grieve for their losses."

With those two sentences, the Emperor began a campaign that would last 252 years, would involve all six Star Empires, would see over 85 percent of Negaverse forces crippled or destroyed, and would result in a net takeover of Negaverse worlds in excess of 25 percent. In centuries to come, historians would refer to this campaign as the Quarter War, mainly for the fact that it lasted a quarter of a millennium and resulted in territorial losses of a quarter for the Negaverse.

Thus began and ended the first Star League, a thousand years of peace and prosperity between five of the six Star Empires. In the next installment, the history of the revived Star League, the Second Star League, and the Executors will be covered. The proper history of this magnificent alliance will be completely illustrated in the fifth Set of the story Chronicles of the Multimage.


	3. Planning Stages

(Jokers Wild, Set 2, Chapter 3: Planning Stages)

(22 August CE 72, 1400 Hours UTC)  
>(Mendel Colony, Mendel Administration Building, Floor 7 Conference Room)<p>

"Look, as of right now the law does not care how this material got here, who put it here, who claims it is here, or who claims that they own it. Material abandoned in place due to the processing of a war, regardless of the war or the parties involved, falls under salvage regulations clauses of Admiralty Law as recognized by all six of the star empires of the Star League. Under such law, any material claimed as salvage is automatically recognized as salvage as of the time that it was claimed if no clear possession was possible by the original owning party. In this case, when we claimed salvage rights of the colonies in Lima–four, the corporations that had initially constructed these colonies had all gone bankrupt due to losses incurred by the destruction of most of those colonies and the subsequent abandonment of others due to the ongoing war. Additionally, at the time of that abandonment, no effort had been made for other corporations to purchase or otherwise transfer those assets, as no record of transaction in this fashion existed in anybody's system until a week ago, which is unsurprisingly postdated to show slightly after the last of the colony corporations went bankrupt. That, good sir, falls under the heading of wire fraud among the Star Empires. If you men wish to continue this claim, I'll go ahead and post your information as you have written out and begin proceedings for a claim of holding. I will then proceed to have each and every one of you arrested for wire fraud. Is that how you wish to end this?"

Of course, every man at the table railed against his accusations, though not out of inaccuracy in his statements. They knew they had been caught in the process of attempting to defraud Mendel and they knew he was not bluffing when he said they would be jailed for the attempt. "Can we skip the whole jailed in Mendel thing?"

"Certainly." Captain Ward slid the documents back to the representative. "This claim never existed, which thus means the underlying wire fraud on which is based is unenforceable. Additionally, you gentlemen also get to dodge the very merry charge of aiding and abetting terrorist organizations, which makes the whole wire fraud thing look like a fart in a tornado."

"Where the hell do you get that charge?" The senior negotiator asked indignantly.

"Oh, that one it is an easy one. Propulsion And Machinery Progress is a member of the National Defense Industry Association of the Earth Alliance. The NDIA is a known classification-three terrorist organization under Magi law. Therefore, any businesses that do business on a first-order basis in a knowing fashion fall under the regulations for aiding and abetting. And before you say anything about the purity of business transactions, keep in mind that having your bid package underwritten by PMP does not exactly say double-blind transaction to any courts you might have to go in front of to justify. So, before I'm really required to haul out the regulations book, let's just say this dog won't hunt and call it even. Fair enough?"

"Message received, Captain," The junior negotiator replied.

The method of his reply immediately grabbed the attention of Captain Ward. "Military?"

"Radar officer, _Arkansas_-class, '54 to '62. I pulled the plug when it looked to me like the promotions board decided I'd hit the top end." He specifically didn't have to mention the unstated caveat that he hit his furthest point of advancement because he wasn't kissing enough Blue Cosmos asses to ensure further promotion.

"Not an unfamiliar story among this task force. Hell, took the assignment board six months to find a ride crappy enough to assign the Star Admiral to. Still, all we can do is just keep on trucking, and hope the REMF squads don't yank the truck out from under us. So, what's the next subject?"

"Further access to material, especially to base and rare earth metals."

"Okay, this is where things get a little bit interesting," Captain Glennaste Ward replied evenly. "The first and loudest problem is simple: by law, Mendel cannot trade with the Earth Alliance. I don't think I need to remind any of you this fact."

"An old philosopher once said "an unjust law is no law" if I remember correctly." From the senior representative, it sounded like as artful a dodge as any, and in willing company would even be used as justification to bypass a law.

Of course, Captain Ward fit no measure of the word 'willing' on this subject. "That depends solely on how limp your definition of justice truly is," he threw out there as bait for the representatives. Nobody in the rival camp rose to the bait, a not unexpected result. "That being said, there is a way for you to access resources produced from the salvage we collect. The international commodities and metals markets make a very lively trade in our proceeds; it would not be unreasonable for you to take possession of certain refined raw materials were you to find a willing buyer in those markets. I highly suggest, however, that you purchase from retailers that are purchasing from us for the intention of general distribution; we will see through any attempt to set up a front company and will refuse to sell to those front companies. Above and beyond that, there's little I can help you with. On this colony, the law is unequivocal and the absolute last thing I want to do to be remembered by history as selling to terrorists."

The senior diplomat simply bristled at the repeated accusation. "Will you please stop calling a sovereign nation terrorists?"

"Will you please shitcan Blue Cosmos?" The Mendel representative requested in a sickeningly-sweet voice.

"You know I do not have the authority to do that," the elder representative replied almost in a growl.

"I expect as much," Captain Ward sighed his resignation on this subject. "And herein lies the problem. I will just say that I'm not going to repeat the analysis of the actual operating structure of the Earth Alliance, and I'll spare you the necessity of repeating the official party line that denies the official operating analysis. Call it a preemptive attack against a needless argument. That being said, until such a time as the Earth Alliance strips out the influence of said parties and can be shown to be operating free of that influence, there is nothing I can do in terms of direct trade with the Earth Alliance."

"Is this what the people of the colony want?" coming from the junior negotiator, Captain Ward was a little bit surprised.

"Officially, the embargo against the Earth Alliance is supported by 78 percent of the populace. Unofficially, you really do not want to know what they ask us to do, and what we old and wizened soldiers must adroitly refuse to do."

"May I speak candidly?" The elder negotiator requested.

"Certainly," the Mendel representative offered him the field.

"Are Magi entities, be they companies or other government functions, always this much of a pain in the ass to negotiate with?" The question was asked with such gravity and conciseness that it was apparent to everyone it was a very serious question, not a joke or an insult.

Captain Ward took the question neither as joke or insult, but as a backhanded compliment. "Only to people actively trying to kill us, to everybody else we are reasonably friendly if a mild bit standoffish. Now, is there anything else I can help you gentlemen with?"

"No thank you, we will be taking our leave." Without further word, the two negotiators left the room.

"You may speak now," Captain Ward said towards the ceiling of the room.

"That went far better than I expected," the artificial intelligence entity for the colony answered the Captain's implicit order to speak. "Those two knew the party line before they walked into the room. I don't believe I need to explain to you that they were fishing in attempt to find someone who would be more flexible than the law allowed."

"Testing the armor, trying to find a soft spot in our defenses. Nothing particularly special, especially since their paymasters are not giving them any slack to negotiate with. I'm guessing the upper-level maggots are running on the assumption that we will start doing business sometime after we realize that they're big enough to flatten us."

"They should know by now that Magi forces had never been impressed by force of numbers, given that we have never fought a war in such a fashion that we actually had the superiority of numbers. It is basic doctrine and training principle that we will eventually be outnumbered, they should already know this." If anything, Glennaste Ward was surprised by the sour tone of voice coming from the wall speakers and by extension the artificial intelligence entity that was speaking to him.

A simplistic but not altogether untrue euphemism came to mind. "Great big men have their great big flaws, and so far it's looking systemic that the Earth Alliance has one great big flaw in underestimating their opposition. Yes, I know about Sutherland, but so far he and his disciple appear to be the roaring exception in a sea of stupidity. Unless you have a better explanation?"

Silence was the only answer. Of course, Captain Glennaste Ward didn't realize that his generalization of the enemy command structure also put himself squarely in the center of the exact same generalization.

-x-x-x-

(30 August CE 72, 1030 hours PLANTs time)  
>(Office of the Chairman of ZAFT)<p>

"This strategic meeting is now in order," Chairman Durandal began the preamble to the meeting. It was not much of a meeting, a handful of administrative advisory specialists, two warship captains, and a handful of pilots and pilot commanders. "For the sake of brevity, and on the fact there is no cause to challenge any person in this room on loyalty, we will skip the traditional opening." A few of the pilots shared a quick glance but nothing was said directly about skipping the soldier's pledge for ZAFT. "Captain Gladys, what is the progress on your ship?" Captain Talia Gladys stood, came to attention, and saluted as was traditional. "At ease, Talia. This may be a classified strategic meeting, but I do not expect formalities or measured responses. I called this meeting to discuss planning and informal exchange of ideas and concepts, the full measure of formality is not necessary here."

Talia winced at the implicit order to not show expected deference to the standing Chairman of the PLANTs. Still, an order was in order, and she did have a request to answer. "Sir, the ship is presently at 47 percent hull completion, engine systems are at 23 percent completion, life-support systems are at 10 percent completion and armaments are at 14 percent completion. The Armory One shipwright is estimating no less than six months until we can begin space flight testing for the unit."

"Captain Halsey, your ship's status?"

Captain Frankford (Frank) Halsey stood when requested. Much as his name suggested, Captain Halsey was descended of another very famous Halsey, the latter being an admiral in the long-deceased United States Navy. As Chairman Durandal was a firm believer in the power of genetics and genetic aptitude, he figured a relative of a very famous Admiral had some potential in his own right. His naval record showed promise, especially in battles against the Earth Alliance, lending credence to the Chairman's theory. "_Gondwanna_ overall is at 65 percent construction completion. It should take roughly the same amount of time to complete as the _Minerva_," he noted with gravity. "Facilities for the carried units will take an additional two months to complete."

"Six months, eight months," Durandal repeated. "Honest opinion time, and this question is an open one to every person present. Are these projects worth the expenditure of resources and manpower?"

His response for the first minute was a din of conversation between some of the senior personnel, but the first definitive answer came from Commander Yzak Joule. "The most complete answer to your question, Chairman, is both yes and no." Half the analysts – and more than a few of the line personnel – expressed their disdain for his answer, believing the proper answer to be 'yes' in most cases.

"It is the opinion of the analysts that the answer is an unequivocal yes, and several of the ship captains agree."

"Not all of us," Captain Halsey responded. "If Commander Joule is thinking what I am thinking, I side with him."

"I am in with the Commander, I think I know why he is saying yes and no." Yzak simply nodded to the support services commander.

"My opinion is in concurrence with Commander Yzak Joule, Chairman. I have seen first-hand exactly what he is about to use as evidence." Captain Gladys nodded to the younger commander, making sure the distinction was clear that she was not siding with the desk weenies in this case.

"Very well, Senior Analyst Nimzicki, please deliver the majority opinion."

"Sir, in deference to those who have faced off against the Mendel forces, they are not invincible and they are not supermen. I will readily give them credit for being extremely tough and even more dangerous, but they have a glass jaw. All it should take is one good hit and it's over for them. The _Minerva_ ships give us a good opportunity to hit them hard and fast at any location of our choosing, and the _Gondwanna_ gives us both numeric superiority and strategic mobility. Against a rival whose primary mindset is defensive, their options are limited and their transition from defense to offense gives us time to counterattack or preemptively strike them. I do not believe I have to speak of the utility of our ships against either Orb or the Earth Alliance."

"The dissenting opinion, please."

Yzak stood and took a quick breath to prepare. "I say the two projects would be extremely useful against both the Earth Alliance and the Emirate of Orb. I do not, however, say that these projects would be of complete utility against the Mendel forces. The reason why they would be of only limited effectiveness against Mendel is simple: the more defensive pressure you put on a Magi force, the harder they fight and the more damage they will cause to an attacking force."

"No evidence of that," one of the analysts muttered, just barely audible to those in his vicinity.

"Another thing to keep in mind is that Magi forces always expect to be fighting against a numerically superior foe; fighting against three-to-one odds is not only their mindset, it is a training requirement and the basis for their Trial of Position. Oh, yes, that reminds me: of the four military forces in discussion here, the Magi are the only force that requires an incoming recruit to win a battle against numerically superior forces before they can accept a position in the line units."

"You can take the man out of the cave, but you can't take the cave out of the man," another of the analysts declared, this time slightly more audible and clearly heard by Captain Gladys.

Yzak suspected he understood what he heard, but pressed on: "Therefore, any units that we would fight in battle start at veteran ratings well in excess of our training standards, because those units that couldn't hack it have already been kicked out. Now, if these analysts want to stand here and tell me that the Magi forces are going to give a flying rat's ass about a very minor numeric advantage over the mobile forces complement of the _Mjolnr_, I can supply them the Mobile Suits to go test that theory. I need to clear some room in my unit anyway for incoming new model suits, might as well put the older units to use."

"Why don't you?" one of the female analysts requested.

"I already do," Yzak replied testily, referring to his training battles against Mendel and the odd Trial of Possession. "If I break even against them, I'm doing good. I don't need to tell you what happened at Second of Jachin Due, and prior to that battle I'd already engaged them once and had my ass handed to me _by their Marines_," he said with some fervor.

"Yzak," Chairman Durandal cautioned.

"I know, sir, that one is classified, but it is time to pull these Analysts' heads out of their arses. Permission to brief them?" Yzak requested.

Silence for five seconds, as Durandal weighed the options. "You may proceed."

"We received reports of Earth Alliance activity at Mendel, and three ships went to inspect. _Heusinger_, _Helderton_, _Vesalius_."

"_Heusinger_ and _Vesalius_? Mendel killed them? How?"

"I'll go in order," Yzak answered. "We arrived at the rear dock of the colony and entered. Inside the colony, we came across and engaged an unknown Gundam, what we thought was an Earth Alliance machine. Turned out it was a Mendel Dendrobium Stamen Gundam, nothing special in terms of Mobile Suits – the Duel is just as flexible as what I shot down, though the Stamen's armor is better. While inspecting the downed unit, Commander Creuset and I were engaged by a literally unrecognizable enemy force – Armored Marines with their shields don't look human when they're using their jump jets to bounce up and attack your machine at point-blank range. In 10 seconds of engagement time, these Marines were able to almost completely cripple Commander Creuset's new model GuAIZ mobile suit and caused extensive damage to my upgraded Duel mobile suit. Now keep that thought in mind going forward: 10 Marines, one mobile suit, 10 seconds, one crippled mobile suit. Mendel has more than a Galaxy of Marines; unless you intend on using a nuclear weapon on their colony, you will have to deal with those Marines and I want no part of that."

"We would never stoop so low as to use nuclear weapons on civilians," a senior adviser said with extreme indignation.

"I rest my case on the Marines," Yzak said. "Creuset was out first, and during his attempt to retreat he ran afoul of a certain white painted Neue Ziel mobile armor – come to find out way later after the Second of Jachin Due, that mobile armor belongs to Mendel's second-in-command. I was delayed in exiting the colony, and that was good thing – if I had departed the colony with Creuset, I probably would not have survived. Century Commander Gerald Lightbringer is not exactly famous for leaving survivors in his wake, at least among the tales told within Magi circles; I have a feeling he is operating under orders, but he seems to have about a 50 percent kill ratio with everybody he faces, ZAFT or Earth Alliance. That being said, what got _Heusinger_ and _Vesalius_ was not one man piloting one mobile armor, but one very pissed off well armed escort battleship, the one that happens to be named after a hallucinogenic alcoholic beverage." Yzak technically overstated the power and prestige of said warship, given that the _Absinthe_ was classified as an Escort Destroyer Monitor, not a battleship.

"How can a heavy gun destroyer take out two of our ships? How badly was it damaged?"

"Oh, if you think that's bad, I got some seriously messed up news for you. The _Absinthe_ delivered the killing strikes literally within 10 seconds of each other, in what I believe is called a naval alpha strike. All told, we recovered maybe four escape pods between the two ships. That is only a partial idea of how high you're going to have to jump to impress Mendel. As much as I don't like saying it, I cannot in good conscience say that the two projects are going to be war-winners if by some quirk of fate we end up going gun-to-gun against Mendel."

"Leaving Mendel out of the equation, you are in agreement that the ships are of use against Earth Alliance or Orb forces?" Chairman Durandal asked for clarification.

"Yes, sir. I'm not the best in here in naval terms, but by the numbers the _Gondwanna_ and an escort fleet should be capable of wrecking the naval forces of all four of the ground-bound states that have naval forces up here," by which he was referring to be Earth Alliance, the Emirate of Orb, the United States of South America, and the Kingdom of Scandinavia, the latter two of which had purchased some salvaged warships from Mendel and were preparing to purchase more ships from the Earth Alliance.

"The analysts concur on that, sir, but we disagree on their utility against Mendel."

"Very well, we will continue the project on the assumption that it will not be Mendel that we are facing in the next war. Something else will need to be determined and implemented if for some reason we are ever required to go head-to-head against Mendel." Some of the personnel took the short pause as appropriate time to take notes, others conferred with nearby colleagues about how well their debate position was doing when argued out. "Our next matter of consideration is the establishment of an artillery doctrine and revising mobile weapons to accommodate this doctrine. The opening opinions please?"

Thus began the second phase of contention between the operators and the analysts. Chairman Durandal found the heated argument much to his liking; he was a native schemer and strategist, the exacting details and methods of military operations were his one weakness in any long-term plans that he thought he might have, and he believed he chose well when he assembled this group to assist with those plans.

His one miscalculation was forgetting that Mendel had the ability to listen in on these meetings just as readily as he did.

-x-x-x-

(7 September CE 72, 2015 hours UTC)  
>(Orb Satellite Station <em>Ame No Mihashira<em>)

"Piloting, report distance to docking at station."

"Distance to docking position is three-five meters and closing."

Collectively, the bridge crew of the newly redesignated KS-SN-001 _Viking_ held their breath as the docking maneuvers continued. It was not that any one man or woman on the bridge was technically incompetent in their task; on the contrary, the crew of the ship were the best of the best of the Kingdom of Scandinavia naval forces. The problem being in the designation of what manner of naval forces: the crew trained mostly on Scandinavian submarines, which in the end was the closest designation of warship to an actual space and Naval warship in terms of inside-atmosphere analog. The differences between wet-naval and space-Naval ship handling were extensive, and quite frankly the Scandinavians did not have any manner of training facility to learn the skills short of taking their new ship out and gingerly learning it by trial and error.

All things considered, the crew had been significantly lucky in their choice for first ship. Mendel had captured more than a few intact _Nelson_-class warships in the botched nuclear raid on their home colony. Having no need for such otherwise outdated warships, Mendel gave options for those warships to Orb, Scandinavia, and South America; the Equatorial Union did not respond to requests for a bid on the other ships, meaning that they either were not interested or could not finance such ships. Orb purchased two ships, South America purchased two, and Scandinavia purchased four, the single largest military expenditure ever in the nation's history. On the other hand, it gave them a way into the naval dominance games being played in the near space around the planet, and it also gave them a starting position from which they could expand their growing Navy by way of salvage purchases from the Earth Alliance, who were beginning to quietly sell off some of their older _Drake_-class ships.

The luck of their draw truly came into realization when the crew found that the navigation systems on their _Nelson_-class warship were the absolute state-of-the-art in terms of control and ease of use. Most of the maneuvering functions were themselves automated. The fact that losses incurred during the war required that incoming crew for new warships to be able to do their job with rote commands, and as little training is possible to better field new forces was clearly evident to the Scandinavian personnel. Other functions of the ship, such as sensors and weapons panels, were themselves highly automated but not to the same degree as navigation systems. By design, as much load as possible was being taken off the crews of these newer _Nelson_-class ships, a decision which was part task load reduction and part training requirement reduction, though in the end how well the automation would substitute for proper crew training or veterancy was definitely open for debate. By the numbers, any of the Monitors in the possession of Mendel were considered to be the most difficult ships to crew or fight, but by the same token the ships were also expected to win against any other ship in present employ hands down.

Still and all, the exigencies of interstellar expansion demanded a naval presence to guard the process, the ships and the colonies that were to come. The command section of the Kingdom of Scandinavia was definitely thinking ahead with their option to begin developing a space naval fleet now as opposed to when it would be needed most.

"Arriving in position in seven seconds, five seconds, three seconds, now. Neutralizing inertia and matching rotational velocity to the station."

"Conn, sensors, station is deploying magnetic grapples and gang plank."

"Sensors, Conn, acknowledged." After the magnetic grapples took hold on the ship, the Captain picked up his growler phone and hit the quick-connect button for engineering. "Engineering, Conn, finished with engines. Shut 'em down."

"Acknowledged, Cap'n." The sound of the engines diminished slowly for thirty seconds, then the lights flickered as the ship switched over to shore (colony) power for internal functions.

"It's a start," the Chief of the Watch grumbled.

"A start and nothing more," the Captain replied. "We have long to go before we can even begin worrying about gunnery or naval strategy."

"Aye, sir," the Chief replied.

The Captain picked up the same handset as before, though this time he punched in a different code. The automated intercom system let loose a three-tone whistle as an attention-getter for the whole ship. "Attention all hands, this is the Captain speaking. I would like to congratulate you on an excellent first run in the _Viking_, the first commissioned of our homeland's new star navy. All personnel are to finish buttoning up the ship and report to briefing station in _Ame No Mihashira_ when cleared by your section officers. That is all."

"We definitely need to give thanks to Orb for letting us dock here at station _Ame No Mihashira_," the weapons controller officer said to her junior ensign on the weapons panel.

"We owe thanks to many groups for this wonderful bounty we now sail. Orb, Mendel, even the Earth Alliance contributed directly or indirectly to our fledgling Navy. The least we can do in thanks is to not squander this opportunity. The next thing we can do is begin some honest to God expansion; in time, we can begin taking other planets and start setting ourselves up a proper interstellar Navy." Despite the hints of pride in his voice, everyone knew that the captain knew that this was the vulnerable point in time for the Kingdom of Scandinavia. In all reality, it would only take one mistake to effectively annihilate the on-going plans; it did not matter if it was their fault, someone else's fault, or nobody's fault, it would only take one mistake to end this charade immediately.

"The one horse wonder is always the easiest guy to cripple or kill in a battle," the wise-ass helmsman said to nobody in particular. Even though it was not a directed comment, the intent of this saying was clear to everyone.

"Now, everyone here knows our nation's limitations. More to the point, everyone here knows our nation's strengths. We can never match the Earth Alliance in numbers, unless we expand extremely aggressively. We can never match ZAFT technical artistry in the art of mobile warfare. I don't think any being in existence will ever be able to match Mendel's complete grasp of warfare and their ruthlessness in executing the war. On the other hand, per capita Scandinavia has the most seafaring population of all, men and women literally born into the roles of sailors and shipwrights. Let others have their larger ground forces, formidable mobile army units, it means nothing if they can't get close enough to use them." The Captain sighed mightily. "Should've saved that spiel for the debrief."

"I think we can go for an encore, Captain," the ship's executive officer replied. A couple of the radar officers giggled at the Captain's admission, but nothing more was said.

"I think I shall," the captain mused. "Bridge staff is dismissed to assembly room for debriefing."

-x-x-x-

(12 September CE 72, 1010 hours PLANT Standard Time (UTC-4))  
>(ZAFT Station Armory One, Northern Continent, ZAFT National Training Center and Industrial Park)<p>

"Shinn! Coming around on your left!" Meiryn shouted across the radio link.

"I can't see her! Take cover!" Shinn passed a recommendation to the others. He suited actions to words just as readily as he said it, with a timely move of his ZGMF-X999A ZAKU Trial Type he was out of the line of fire from the enemy. The poor sods in the building he was next to, however, were rather visibly worried that a Mobile Suit was now using their establishment for cover, though all the buildings in the area were designed to take abuse from MS training battles.

"How can one pilot keep us all pinned down?" Dale asked as his GuAIZ R took cover behind a medium-rise building.

"This isn't anything like training!" Lunamaria half-moaned, half-shouted at her forward viewscreen. Her machine was identical to Shinn's, except she had it painted red with white highlights to match her hair color.

"She's definitely not playing nice, and nothing like Earth Alliance models," Rey Za Burrel griped. He was not referring to Earth Alliance machines, of which their intel on older machines would not likely apply due to upgrades, but he was referring to their combat models and doctrine. Already his shield had several beam scorch marks from training-strength beam weapon fire and a few paintball splats for good measure.

"Now is not a good time to be debating what our foe is fighting like. Can we try to flank left, see if we can force her into a vulnerable position?"

Shaun took the request from Dale as an implicit plan and recommendation for beginning some kind of coordinated strike. He made the subconscious decision to move first, a fatal flaw without the rest of team being clearly on board the evolving plan. It was not more than three steps from cover behind a large liquid storage tank that he came under fire from the enemy. Even despite having a shield oriented left to block incoming fire, the right side of his machine took two hits in the arm and two hits in the right upper chest, neither of which would be fatal hits in real battle but they both would diminish performance and effectively disarm him. To simulate the casualties, his GuAIZ R slacked off its ability to control the right arm, which resulted in it going limp but retaining possession of the machine gun used for this simulation.

"Damn it all, you are moving too fast!" Shinn jumped clear of his cover location, burning through an entire magazine to suppress the last known firing location of their enemy. As far as he could tell, it achieved the desired effect in that his opponent did not show herself again even as the other machines in the unit broke cover and joined them in a defense palisade formation.

"Sorry Shinn, I thought I had a good plan," Shaun replied as the team moved towards cover again.

"She gave us that one for free, one good burst or a call of artillery could have took all five of us out in that clearing."

"Leave it to Ray Za Burrel to point out our mistakes in the middle of a shooting match." If Lunamaria could sound any more soured about the thought of being schooled by one of her teammates, nobody in the formation could remember such a time.

Several rounds of paint and a pair of beams struck the ground in the vicinity of where they took cover. "He is right, if we stand around in open areas with our thumbs up our butts, I would be surprised if she didn't shoot us for being that stupid," Dale noted with a slight hint of humor.

"Days like today remind me it was a lot simpler back in basic," Shaun said to nobody in particular. "Now, how do we get out of this mess?"

Another half dozen paint rounds splatter on a nearby medium-rise building in the training area. On the far side of the windows, several of the office workers were scared shitless, and even one managed to knock over a water cooler in her haste to take cover. It was a hazard of taking office space in Armory One, and everyone that signed on to the companies knew this would happen on a routine basis. "Very carefully," Meiryn said from the simulated control room. "Shaun had the right idea, nobody else jumped with him. You all have to move as one so she can't attack all of you at once. Don't let her divide you, and don't let her see only one of you at a time; she can't kill you all at once unless you make it real easy for her."

"Where do you want us?" Rey asked after a short pause.

"Follow these routes," and on her screen she traced each pilot out a quick navigation route to be followed in sync with each other pilot. "When you get to the end of your route, take cover and hold position. Do not attempt to engage if you're the only person in the area."

"Ready for it," Shinn declared once he saw the plan on the tactical map of the area.

"Jumpoff, now!" Meiryn ordered. She had envied the Mendel flight controllers for their variably-hands-on command authority with Mendel mobile units, but now she realized their command and control had a reason for its existence – and she would need to use it to win in a double-blind battle like this.

Five machines moved as one, each wheeling around their point of cover and advancing toward their next rally point in a coordinated sweep operation designed to prevent the enemy from challenging any one machine without having to fight all of them. In that sense, it worked: Meyrin's ad-hoc strategy allowed three of the machines to put down direct fire on the enemy at the cost of Lunamaria being downed by beam fire. As to how effective it was, the veterancy of the enemy pilot prevented anything crippling, with the shield blocking most of the attack against her.

"Dammit, lost her again. I hate urban warfare." Shinn paused to switch out magazines on his machine gun, giving him a fresh load of munitions should he come face to face with their phantom foe. "What is our next move?"

"One moment, drawing new routes," Meiryn said hurriedly. "Got it, we're going to try and force her towards the chemical plant dead ahead of you. We lost one, but don't let her separate you."

"Easier said than done, Meiryn, especially since she is not fighting like any foe I recognize." As usual, Ray Za Burrel made at a point to sound as calm as possible even when he was under as much stress as anybody else on the radio channel.

"Awaiting orders," Dale announced as he an analyzed his new movement route.

"Prepare for move, now!"

This time, the move action went completely unhindered and unopposed by the enemy. No visual contact was made with the blue unit even as the four remaining pilots came to a stop at the end of their navigation points. All four simply assumed that the enemy pilot had moved farther forward toward the planned ambush site of the chemical plant.

Oddly, it was Shinn who put voice to the fears inside all four of them. "I don't like this at all, something feels very wrong here."

"No harassing fire means she is planning something, or moving somewhere," Ray put voice to his inner dread.

"She couldn't have flanked us, our system's sensors would have caught it." Luna sounded the most like she was trying to convince herself of her own logic, and to everyone else it sounded like a very hollow argument.

Ray barely sensed the execution of his dread, a mere quarter second before the proximity warnings in his ZAKU test type registered a threat. "From behind!"

Even with the minor hint of forewarning, his attempt to clear out of the path of fire was futile. His machine took six paint rounds in the back, what would have easily been fatal hits were they beam rifle rounds, at the same time that Shinn took four rounds in the back and two in the head. Dale turned and ripped a quick burst in her general direction, but without a clear reference on her location all ten of his shots missed. The enemy response was a pair of bursts from two machine guns as her machine vaulted over a medium-rise industrial building and landed behind the last surviving unit.

Shaun tried maneuvering but the enemy pilot he faced was faster on the trigger than any of the trainees could guess. She walked a burst of fire across both of his legs, which the computer determined were hits that would disable the thrusters in the back of his machine's legs. With the loss of those thrusters, his machine crash-landed and skidded to a stop, effectively crippled and without any decent form of offense. Knowing better than to continue this simulation, he simply popped the crew hatch open and stepped out on the chest of his downed machine, both hands raised in the classic surrender position.

With the surrender of the last pilot, the CGUE DEEP Arms lowered its original machine gun and the weapon recovered from Lunamaria's downed machine. "Welcome to the National Training Center, pilots. This has been your wake-up call."

"What? Is this some kind of sick joke? You kick our asses and call it a wake-up call?" If Shinn could sound any more indignant, nobody on the radio channel had a clue how.

"No joke, Shinn Asuka. This was an object lesson: you are by default **not** the baddest things on two legs in this star system, and I just proved it. Now I have to start teaching you how to be more effective, because if you go outside these walls with an attitude and fighting skills like that, I'm not expecting you to survive."

"This isn't a joke, it's a nightmare," Lunamaria griped over the open channel.

"Welcome to Purgatory, if thinking of it in that fashion makes you feel any better. I am your instructor, Shiho Hannenfuss, and is time for you to earn the redcoats that you wear. Chairman Durandal wants you to be the best of our best, and I say you have a long way to go to get there. Time for you to start proving me right when I think there may be hope for you yet." Shiho took the pause on the radio channel to sigh with her finger off the radio switch. She hoped she was not laying it on too thick, but the necessity of breaking their arrogance was the first and the greatest requirement of her training regimen. Arrogance was the foremost crippling trait of armies throughout Existence, Shiho had learned from the Magi. Commander Hannenfuss knew that ZAFT would have to learn that lesson through her training regimen, or they would learn it the Darwinian way on a real battlefield in the years to come, the latter with real casualties to go along with the real lessons.

"Oh my God, this is starting to sound worse than Basic," Shaun said deadpan.

"Oh, this is nothing. Wait until you have to cross-train with the Mendel forces. Not only will they chew you up and spit you out faster than I did, they'll break your arrogance, your morale and your souls in the process. I stole the idea of a National Training Center from Mendel, who stole the idea from the United States and improved on it. This is where you feel what defeat feels like and learn what victory looks like, so you can use those lessons in the next war. Training battle dismissed, hangar your units and report to briefing three for debrief and analysis. That includes you as well, Meiryn."

Nobody dared to say a word about what she apparently intended, but everybody silently expected they would learn many lessons in coming days and weeks of training. Everybody silently expected that they would be very hard, very harsh lessons, but necessary ones. After all, the only way to be the best was to train like the best and train harder than the best.

-x-x-x-

(20 September CE 72, 0130 hours Lima (UTC-6) time)  
>(Colombia, USSA Territory, circa 35 kilometers east of Bogota)<p>

"Command, Thunder element, standing by at line of departure."

"Command, Wind element, preparing to cross line of departure now, requesting final go-Mission."

It was always at this point in an operation, the final decision to begin or not began, that always gave Edward Harrelson a case of nerves. In this case, however, the attack of the jitters was both minor and short-lived; for his nation to retain its sovereignty, these parties had to be removed.

"Execute operation," he said after only two seconds of hesitation. "Now we see if these new designs work as advertised."

"We've got the best free minds this side of ZAFT working on these new systems. We are doing the best we can, which is better than our foes." Coming from the lead engineer on the new attack chopper, Harrelson only found the comment mildly assuring.

"I hope you're right, or this going to end very quickly and very badly."

-x-

"Wind element, Wind six, we are cleared to execute. Stay in formation, weapons live at point of departure."

"Weapons coming alive now, Major Lido. Autocannons, linear machine guns locked and ready, rockets, antitank missiles, anti-radiation missiles armed and ready. All weapons systems confirmed armed, we are ready to dance."

"Roger," Major Lido answered immediately. One of the few flight-rated helicopter pilots to survive the Earth Alliance takeover of her home country, Major Sylvia Lido was quick to jump at the opportunity to return to active service when the revolution came calling. She had spent the months of combat against the Atlantic Federation troops and their Blue Cosmos puppet masters flying medical dust off for wounded personnel, a sorely needed skill in those days of bloody guerrilla warfare. In the weeks after the revolution, she inadvertently became the primary adviser to Major Harrelson in all affairs pertaining to helicopter operations, and she made her pitch carefully in those days to kickstart a combat helicopter program.

It became fairly obvious fairly quickly that the United States of South America had almost all of the necessary infrastructure to create a combat-viable combat helicopter design. Just the same, ZAFT had all the necessary infrastructure and even had their own design: the Agile combat helicopter units proved to be more than ample of a threat to conventional ground forces, but their effectiveness against Mobile Suits was incredibly lacking. Clearly understanding this deficiency, Sylvia set out to engineer a new unit, taking the best design elements of older and very reliable heavy combat helicopter units and marrying them to a newer structure and weapons package. With the addition of armor provided by Mendel and weapons systems manufactured locally by way of Mendel designs, the Major created what she hoped would be a game-winning anti-armor and anti-personnel forward aviation unit. In honor of her contributions to the design and doctrine, she was allowed to choose the name for the new airframe: Jaguar Warriors.

It would be this evening (technically, _morning_) that provided the first new-world combat data based on old-world combat principles long believed to be obsolete with the coming of the almighty Mobile Suit. Mendel swore up and down that Mobile Suits were glass cannons, the Earth Alliance and ZAFT both swore up and down they were the titans of the modern battlefield, and Major Lido believed she could get an answer one way or the other before she had to retire. If anything, her career was riding on that answer, even if Colonel Harrelson did not say so.

"Wind five, Wind command, move forward to spot for laser-guided missiles. I want towers, strong points, armor, and Air Defense Artillery taken out before our ground team is in position."

"Copy traffic," Wind Five replied as his helicopter began inching forward. If there was any design aesthetic that these machines came close to, it was the older AH-64D Apache Longbow, though the new machines lacked the curves and the grace of the older unit, instead relying on angular armor and surfaces to absorb a hell of a lot more gunfire than the Apaches ever could. By a miracle of engineering, the front and side armor on the Jaguar Warriors was specified to stop a single hit from an Earth Alliance beam rifle, a feat previously believed impossible for any airborne unit prior to the arrival of the Mendel forces.

"Wind command, Wind three, right flank is clear of hostiles. Looks like we have clear approach to the base."

Ahead of the main force of helicopter units, Wind five stopped behind a particularly thick clump of trees and began inching his unit upward to allow him to place the mast-mounted sensor systems in line of sight to the base. After a few seconds, the onboard communication systems inside the forward machine began relaying updated sensor and visual pictures of the base. "Wind command, Wind five, targeting is available."

"Five, start the music. Command, Wind element, please relay to Thunder element we are beginning long-range bombardment."

-x-

High above the location of the enemy training camp, a pair of drone planes orbited in a lazy racetrack pattern over the soon-to-be-a-battlefield. Copied from the Global Hawk drone program of the United States, the new Southern Hawk drones brought improved electronics and capabilities necessary for the new battlefield. Gone were the VHF and UHF communication systems that were rendered mostly useless by N-Jammers, instead replaced by laser communication relays that could not be stopped by the N-Jammers. The visual systems were retained from the old Global Hawk, including laser tracking and designation systems, and the unit's flight time was upgraded to the realm of days on station courtesy of some creative engineering in the USSA aerospace industry. High-capacity battery systems and an electromechanical propeller motor went a long way to ensuring a long duration of flight.

Each of the new Southern Hawk units provided a critical capability to the USSA military structure: the ability to communicate with ground units from afar by way of integrated relay systems. Each Southern Hawk acted as a flying mobile communication hub to coordinate with any ground units that could carry or be retrofitted with a laser communication system. The reintroduced capability of integrated communications and coordination ability changed the game significantly; in the past, the ability to communicate and coordinate was considered a given, a necessity of modern warfare, but was now a luxury prior believed only in the hands of Mendel.

"Thunder element, command, advise Wind element is beginning long-range bombardment. Recommend you begin your approach march in one-five seconds."

"Thunder copies traffic, placing next communication relay."

Four seconds elapsed, then another relay node came alive on the communication status board pertaining to Thunder element. For aerial and ground vehicle units, the laser relay system had been incredibly easy to set up and implement. Infantry forces, the true backbone of any military throughout history, did not have the luxury of having integrated Communications Systems that could be easily swapped out for a laser relay system. Lacking a method to integrate the infantry into communicating with the rest of the battle space, the USSA command structure almost gave up on creating a properly integrated command structure until a communications engineer had a burst of inspiration by reading an old science-fiction novel. In the novel, special forces teams were able to communicate with base without using open-air radio transmissions that could be localized by the invading aliens; their method of communication was by way of laser communications using small man-portable relay boxes. It took the USSA brass less than 30 minutes to approve in the initial concept and allocate funds for initial planning and development, such was the perceived operational need for communications relay and integration of the infantry into any upcoming mobile battles.

The South American engineers took the original concept and doubled down on it. The relay devices in the novel only ever appeared to communicate in a straight line, effectively meaning each device would only attach to a maximum of two other devices. With only a minor change in design ethic, the new relay systems gained a modular component system that would allow each receiver to communicate with up to eight other devices, effectively creating a grid of communication systems that could be tapped from any point in the network, a major improvement over the communication model in the novel. Upgrades were planned to the first-flight receiver systems that would allow them to act as remote sensor systems and a remote laser target designators, effectively creating passive sentry units that would allow the sensor operators to passively defend the communication network with the assistance of artillery or air support.

"Thunder element, command, communication relay is active. Advance with caution. Enemy outer perimeter is less than 100 meters ahead of you. Good hunting." Edward Harrelson leaned back in his chair to better watch the main monitor screens with the relayed video images from the attack helicopters.

-x-

Major Pedro Samuel Rigos, USSA Argentine Special Forces and presently callsign Thunder Six, worked hard to conceal his inner dread at what he knew he was about to walk into.

The problem was not the fighting, certainly not his foes, nor even the necessity of taking down Blue Cosmos. The standing issue with the coming engagement was the absolute hellish mess he knew the helicopters would make of the base. Helo pilots were traditionally not trained to be nice to their targets, and a training facility with a few strongpoint defenses would pose no operational challenge to the revived frontal aviation forces. It would be a difficult task for his ten-man element to comb through the rubble and extract intelligence or survivors from the mess that was just now beginning to be made.

"Time to move," Major Rigos said quietly on the team's short-range radio channel. For communicating with base, his communications officer had a special radio backpack that would be used to talk through the laser repeaters.

"Time to boot these assholes," his heavy weapons Sergeant groused just before the first of the long-range missiles struck in the base proper.

The ten-man assault team formed up into their usual pairs and began the march forward, rifles and light machine guns at the ready for any personnel that would be fleeing the base and / or counterattacking their incursion. The march was slow and methodical; night vision had improved to nearly-daylight quality in the centuries since it was invented, but it still wasn't perfect and all it would take is one man with a flare or flashbang to render the entire team helpless.

It was testament to how lax their security was that the special forces team was able to approach within 50 meters of the base perimeter without being sighted. Now, even with a second wave of missiles coming in from the helicopter gunships, their focus was only on the air threat they could not see for the forest overgrowth in the area that concealed the rotary-wing death machines. Despite the lack of line of sight, a few intrepid Blue Cosmos trainees hefted and fired MANPADS (1) missiles in the general direction of the incoming fire, achieving nothing more than to shred a pair of large conifer trees and redistribute limbs across the area.

"Snipers, action front," Pedro ordered crisply, given that Wind Element would not continue to waste long-range missiles on such paltry threats and the air-defense forces (such as they were) needed to be downed before the rotor-heads closed in for the coup de main attack.

"Target?" The elder sniper specialist requested.

"Air defense personnel," Pedro said without much conviction. In the distance, another pair of missiles went up, but this time only one appeared to detonate inside the stand of trees. The second may or may not have hit something on the far side of the trees, and if it did he hoped the new armored helicopter designs could withstand the MANPADS missiles.

A pair of missiles came in over the treetops, deliberately aimed high by the helicopter forces, where they would pick up the laser designator from the forward scout helo and nose down into the base. These two missiles went in for the base motor pool; both struck and tore apart the flimsy hangar-style structure. Within three seconds of the detonation, the side walls collapsed outward and the roof came down on what was left of the trucks or staff cars in the building. A pair trucks and a car had fled northward already, but Pedro figured the military would find them fast enough.

"Sights are hot," Specialist Celine O'Grady commented in her usual mellow voice. A former Atlantic Federation infantryman (infantrywoman), she deserted due to moral objections and went into hiding after her unit invaded the USSA in years past. The rebellion picked her up and put her back in the field to good use – her rifle skills and sharp tactical acumen put some serious hurt on the Earth Alliance infantry forces she used to serve. After the rebellion, she enlisted with the USSA Special Operations teams because she knew the Atlantic and Eurasian federations were not through with her new adopted homeland.

"Send it," Major Rigos ordered. In stark contrast to an order to fire, an order to 'send it' or 'send your shots' meant to fire when the shooter was assured a hit.

Given the distance was a mere 200 yards, the time between the order and the shot was less than a second. She was a good sniper, better than the Earth Alliance gave her credit for, and with one shot she proved it. A hit on a surface-to-air missile box with a 50-caliber API (2) round caused one of the missiles to cook off, scattering the rest of the boxes (not detonating them) and killing the personnel in the vicinity with fragmentation. One shot, five downed foes – and with it ended the SAM threat from the base.

"Major, they're retreating north, should we lay down fire on them?" his heavy weapons specialist requested.

"No, let them run. They have nowhere to hide, and the helicopters will chase them down and deal with them." It went without saying everyone in the team knew how that would end: very messy. The rotor-heads, if not ordered to outright kill them, would bird-dog the enemy infantry for ground forces to capture or eliminate.

"Here they come," the communications Sergeant said with reverence. True to his word, the six experimental frontal aviation attack helicopters crested the treeline in line abreast formation, each machine spitting rockets and 30mm autocannon into the base proper in response to the Blue Cosmos inductees firing rifles or machine guns at them. It was hopelessly one-sided in the USSA forces' favor, but Major Rigos silently reminded himself that war was never supposed to be fair.

-x-

"Holy shit, sir, what was that?" The vehicle driver asked as the Blue Cosmos training camp receded into the distance south of them.

"That was bad news incarnate," Colonel Morgan Chevalier answered in a measured tone. "Helicopters, several of them."

"Helicopters? How? I mean, ZAFT Has the Agile units, but—"

"ZAFT has pussy attack helos, small and nimble and gave me fits in Southeast Asia, but these are heavy hunter-killer helos. Lots of missiles, lots of guns, probably long-range and probably armored so you can't look at 'em to cause them to fall out of the sky. Would have been nice to get picture or video," the Colonel groused. He considered it blind luck he was out behind the motor pool having a smoke away from the trainees when the shooting started. A kid – 14 at best – had been cleaning the staff cars in the motor pool when the balloon went up; he needed no cadging to drop the sponge and grab the keys.

"Sir, coming over the forest now, back at the base," the lady in the back seat said.

"Stop the car," Morgan ordered. It took roughly ten seconds for them to come to a full stop and pile out to look at the incoming machines in the firelight from the base.

"This is insane! I've never seen anything like those!"

"I have," Morgan sighed. "Looks like it is similar to the old AH-64D Apache, badass tank killers from centuries ago. If they are anywhere as effective as their predecessors, and those pilots look competent enough to fly straight, those things will give us hell even when we have Mobile Suits."

"Does Mendel have helicopters?" the lady asked in fright.

"Doesn't matter," Colonel Chevalier replied stoically. "When this war opens up again, we probably won't live long enough to find out, especially if the USSA starts mass-manufacturing those things."

-x-x-x-

(27 September CE 72, 0700 hours PLANT Standard Time (UTC-4))  
>(ZAFT Station Armory One, Southern Continent, Integrated Design Bureau A1 Factory)<p>

"It certainly looks the part," Yzak mused with a smile.

"I think it'll scare 'em into running home to momma," the junior technician said with a clear hint of pride. "I was polling for more spikes on it, but it was pooh-poohed above me."

"Never been in a mobile warfare battle, have you?" Yzak asked bluntly.

"No, sir, why?" the tech answered with a quizzical expression.

"Mobile Army pilots don't scare by training. You'd really have to do something colossal to cause another MS pilot to run in fear – like use a nuclear weapon. No matter how many spikes it has on it, the best you can hope to scare is veteran infantry."

"Oh," the younger technician groaned. "No wonder they minimized the spikiness, then. No need to add them, simplify production."

"Bingo," Yzak eased up on the tech. "I can see how they derived the Zaku form to create this update. Took the form and structure, married it to ZAFT mobile war concepts, and begin normalization. Performance?"

"The ZAKU Warrior is a 150 percent increase in all specifications over the model we bought from Mendel except armor, which is only plus 25. The ZAKU Phantom is plus 275 in all areas except armor, which is still just plus 25. Production cost is a bit higher for the frame, but we don't have the engine expense so the unit price tag is less than a Zeon Zaku machine."

"Nice," Yzak replied. "Armaments?"

"Big-time improvement over the old Zaku. Primary weapon is a beam rifle roughly equivalent to the beam rifles carried by Mendel machines. Each machine will have a shoulder shield, and the shield will mount two energy packs for the rifle to keep the trooper in the fight longer. Secondary weapon is a beam tomahawk, and each machine can carry up to four grenades on its hip armor." In point of fact, a technician and welder were attaching the locking lugs to the hip armor plate for the grenade rack. "It can also use the old Cattus recoilless rifle from the GINN in case it needs to carry heavy blasting firepower."

"What about an extended grenade rack?" Yzak asked.

"Not on the factory models, but the engineers are working on drawing up specifications for extended ammo for special operations troops."

"If we have to go to ground, we will need it," Commander Joule thought aloud. "I believe I heard something about these models being able to mount variable mission packs?"

"I think you heard correct, sir," and the tech waved him over to a database panel. With a few taps on the screen, he brought up the view of the back of the machine, with several fixtures highlighted. "These are the hardpoints for the Wizard Pack system. We have three models being derived from the Mendel machines, all three machines will be able to use the Wizard packs. The yes-men up top wanted to make it so only the ZAKU would use a wizard pack, but someone way higher said enable the ZAKU, GOUF, and DOM to use all the packs. We've got some hot plans for strap-on firepower...wait, that didn't sound right, even to me."

"Strap-ons and Mobile Suits should never be used in the same sentence," Yzak commented dryly. "Still, this pack specification is pretty good. Extended jump capability, extended space maneuver and guided missiles for good measure," he said as he read through the specifications for the Blaze Wizard pack.

"We learned a lot about efficient jet usage from the Leo we received from Mendel. The Leos aren't liked by the front-liners, not enough armor to take a beating, but they have just about everything else going for 'em including flight time. I figure the armor thing is all overblown anyways, one good beam rifle hit and its over."

"Yep, just don't try that on Mendel units. Their armor really is beam resistant," Yzak said as he moved the database record viewer to the next record, that of the Gunner Wizard Pack. "Oh, man, that is some firepower, it might be able to one-shot a Mendel unit."

"Everyone thinks it can, except you say it might?" the tech asked. "Are they really that serious?"

"I fought them at the Second of Jachin Due. One Mobile Armor tore through my entire team, including a CGUE DEEP Arms and the upgraded Duel Gundam. I even had an earlier encounter with their Marines against my Gundam, and I didn't win that one either – I had to retreat before they tore my machine apart. You can say a lot of things about Mendel, but 'pussies' or 'easy to kill' are not on that list."

"Oh, wow," the tech moaned as Yzak paged forward to the next Wizard Pack entry. The pack listing was Knight Wizard, and it was mostly just a storage bin of ammunition for the new DOM Trooper Mobile Suit that was still undergoing structural trials. The amount of ammunition it was slated to carry for its intended weapons was immense – easily over 100 bazooka rounds per bazooka carried (maximum two), or 10 drill lance heads per lance if the pilot carried them (max 2), or a combination if the pilot wanted to carry a combination of weapons.

The next entry on the list brought the tech mentally back to the here-and-now. "That's the Mobility Wizard pack. It is going to be standard issue on the GOUF Ignited, though the GOUF can switch out for the other pack systems as needed and the other machines can use it. Flight capable in atmosphere, and helluva maneuverable in space."

"That will help, somewhat, against the Earth Alliance." The unstated caveat was that it would not help against Mendel, though the tech figured it of some use against Orb.

"How hard can it be to outfly Mendel craft? They focus on armor, not speed, which makes them slow and easy targets."

"Doesn't matter if we outfly Mendel," Commander Joule pointed out fairly. "It matters how well we shoot, how well they shoot, and how well they can resist being shot by us or anyone else for that matter. Speed isn't armor; try buzzing by a Mendel Gundam or Aerofighter and they will prove it for you."

"Don't the Magi have some long saying about that? 'Speed isn't armor, speed won't save you,' something like that?" the Tech asked.

"Clean version or non?" Yzak asked as he flipped the database panel to the Slash Wizard pack information.

"Dirty, of course," the tech replied with a hint of indignation, as if the answer should have been obvious.

"Let's see if I remember it right. 'Speed is not offense, speed is not defense, speed is not armor, speed will not save your ass from a terminal case of lead poisoning. Skill is offense, skill is defense, armor is armor, and a big stick will keep your enemies at bay,' " Yzak recited a mash of the dirty and clean versions of the old Magi saw about the inherent dangers of speed.

"Whoa, that's deep," the Tech said with clear amazement.

"This next war, contrary to what the pundits say, isn't going to be won by the guys with the most of anything. It is going to be won by the guys with the best training and coordination. Good machines will get us somewhere, but it will take a lot more to really go the distance."

It would be Yzak's haunting answer to the tech's incredulity that would sway the fate of his nation, in more ways than one.

-x-x-x-

(27 September CE 72, 1200 hours UTC)  
>(<em>Guild II<em>-class Dropship _Fast Falcon_, in orbit above the Debris Belt)

"Chief of the Watch, secure the bridge door. Nobody in or out unless I say otherwise."

"Aff, milady," the Chief replied. In all reality, he was not a Chief Boatswain, but was acting the part dutifully; his proper rank was Star Captain (Commando), which put his real paygrade well above the role he was playing for the day.

The door out of the bridge was a heavy blast door, and had several interleaved mechanical bolt locks that could resist attack from lighter Battle Armor for a short amount of time. The true intention of the blast door was to prevent pirates from gaining access to the bridge, and it served that duty well in peacetime. The sound of the bolts ratcheting into place with a distinctive triple-clang chilled the bridge staff to the bone, but not a word was said.

As soon as the Chief of the Watch returned to his station, the Captain nodded to him. "Bridge personnel, listen up!" the Captain prompted them, which caused heads to turn toward her station immediately. "Chief Mick has an announcement you all need to hear."

"Is the locked door part of it?" The weapons controller asked.

"Oh yes," the Captain replied evenly. "Bridge is yours."

The Chief stood up and looked around. "Name's Mick Dalton, I'm a Star Captain under Gerald Lightbringer." If anything else had ever caused the two gossiping navigation specialists to shut up nearly instantly, the Captain could not think of it. "I'm going to start this brief by saying that anything from here on out is classified top secret or better. What is about to be discussed and done cannot be spoken of again without proper clearance, not even in your wildest wet dreams. Any of you who cannot keep your shit silent need to stand up to be released from duty right now."

"What's so big and bad that we have to be sworn to secrecy?" the senior Navigation specialist asked bluntly.

"I'm not about to tell you unless I have your assurance that you won't be blabbing about it." The clearly-understood indirect threat from his pre-briefing pep talk was that anyone who misspoke on these subjects would be quietly 'disappeared' for their intransigence. The Magi always took a very dim view of spies and informants, and everyone present knew that fact from childhood. If he said it was classified, it was expected that it would stay classified, one way or the hard way.

Of course, not everyone in the Empire agreed with the concept of secrecy and propriety at an Empirical level, and it showed. "I'm out," the junior Nav specialist said. "Damn military-industrial complex types and their secrecy rules. It's people like you who prevent the many worlds from getting along in peace and harmony." Though her phrasing was referring to planetary-level, she was properly referring to relations between the various Star Empires of many sizes, the bulk of which had some form of enmity with at least one other Empire somewhere else in Existence.

Mick chalked her spite up to the wildly errant belief that the default status of Existence was peace and order, a happy illusion that had nearly zero evidence to support it as far as a Commando was concerned. "Keep telling yourself that, honey," Star Captain Dalton groused as she took the stairs down to the door out. "Anyone else?" he asked. Not even the senior Navigation Specialist stood to leave. "All right, when I reseal the door, the classified actions begin."

"What's the big deal?" the commo specialist requested. "Oh, her?" he asked as the Star Captain escorted one of the passengers up to the bridge deck.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is Veruna Daniels, a Coordinator refugee from the Earth Alliance Atlantic Federation territories. Her parents are still in the Earth Alliance, and our intention is to extract them by way of hacking them a clear path from their residence to Orb and then onto a freight Dropship headed for Mendel. The necessity of classification is because this will probably not be the last time we do it, given there are still a significant number of Coordinators in the Earth Alliance territory that cannot attempt to exfiltrate without some form of support."

"Like the old Underground Railroad from old United States history, only with more and more diverse methods?" the Helmswoman asked.

"You got it, kid," the elder Commando replied to the teenage junior ship pilot. "Commo, establish laser-link to Mendel, use this code for the connection;" he handed the communications officer a single piece of paper. "Sensors, confirm no craft or objects in the vicinity for possible laser-line intercept."

"Conn, Sensors, no contacts in LLOC," the sensors officer answered immediately.

"Link polling now, now, active," the commo officer declared when the systems began their link.

"I am online," a voice declared from the communication link.

"Ai, this is Mick, pass-code is Jagger," the Star Captain declared, using an old in-joke about his name. "Authenticate Whiskey-Golf-Charlie."

"Authentication is valid. Veruna, are you ready?" The Artificial Entity asked.

"Now or never," Veruna replied. "Where do you want me?"

"Any open station will do, any can access the networks." Veruna took the seat of the junior navigation tech and cleared the nav system off so she could access the network browser system. "You know what the contact and exfiltration requirements are, so please lay out your plan."

"I will message a family friend who is in on the plan to exfiltrate us. The message will be picked up on Saturday when my dad visits to deliver some firewood. Sunday, they need to be on a plane to Onogoro, where they can be picked up by a Dropship."

"Perfect," the Artificial Intelligence Entity declared. "I will register them on a Equatorial flight from Birmingham International Airport to Onogoro International with one stop in Honolulu. One moment while I verify the transit times." The moment stretched into a ninety-second wait. "Verified. Their flight will be a red-eye express, departure time is 0330 local time Sunday morning. They will be flying second-class, meal service will be provided on the flight. Hope they like crab, doesn't look like the galley is going to be well-stocked."

"We love seafood," Veruna replied. "What about the Onogoro transfer?"

"They will be met by Mendel embassy personnel at Onogoro International, who will take them to the embassy and arrange transit on the _Guild II_-class Dropship _Sailboat Reborn_, which departs roughly six hours after their flight lands in Onogoro."

"Excellent, and I get to reunite with my parents in about a week, after we are done picking up space junk," Veruna completed the run-down operational plan even as she typed in her message to her parents.

"Neg. Mick, brief her in."

"You and I are not hanging around, Veruna," the Star Captain replied. "My boss has a detail waiting for me back home, so we're going to jump ship after the _Sailboat Reborn_ departs Onogoro, and rendevous with it nearby the Asgard station."

"Message is sent. I hope all the stars align on this one," Veruna wished aloud.

"You and I both, kid," the senior navigation specialist said. "Captain, think we can do this a lot more frequently? I mean, these Coordinators down in EA territory are one slip-up away from being royally fucked, and most of us are Mil, so we all know the value of de-assing hostile territory with all due quickness."

"Underground Railroad some Coordinators?" the Captain asked. "Who wants to make it a routine?"

"Hell yeah, Captain," the Weapons Specialist grunted.

"I'm in!" the Helmswoman shouted.

"Fuck yeah, _Fast Falcon_ Express! Depriving the Earth Alliance of torture subjects and enjoying it!" From the Chief Engineer, the Captain figured it a major condemnation.

"What do you say, Star Captain? Think we can make a habit out of this?" the Captain asked.

"I think we may need to establish some contacts with the Atlantic Freedom Operation," the Star Captain mused. "Ai, think we can do it?"

"I am beginning preparations now. Strategic Officer Weste has already signed off on it. Veruna, care to make this a routine operation?"

"I dodged once," Veruna admitted. "I don't think I could live with myself if I dodged again. I'm in."

-x-

(29 September CE 72, 1900 hours UTC)  
>(Earth Alliance Atlantic Federation territory, rural Alabama, 5 kilometers from Daniels household).<p>

"Come, come, I have hot cocoa for you for your troubles," the Russian-born AFO operative said as he waved the part-time lumberjack Estel Daniels into his modest house. "Come!" he said with a big smile. "Thank you for the wood, Estel Daniels, I have your payment ready...and a little something more." With the Earth-Dollars for the wood, Estel Daniels received a computer printout. "Your daughter is very skilled. Our counter-hacker could not reverse-trace the message, he lost track of it after twice around the world and five passes through anonymizer servers, two of which are known to be hostile to Blue Cosmos traffic and inquiries. It is very well laundered."

"She has a gift with communications technologies," Estel said without doting about it. "Oh, wow," he grunted after he read through the message.

"You do not have much time, but this works to everyone's advantage. I have a message you need to give to someone high up in the Mendel command structure when you get there," and he passed off to Estel a small data chip. "We can get more out; we can get thousands out, if we can get some form of support. The Atlantic Freedom Operation is all over, watching and silently guarding the Coordinators who were unlucky enough to remain behind. We need support to do more."

"I will plead your case to the Star Admiral if I must," Estel promised.

"They sound like they're honorable men and women, let us see if they really show it." The AFO operative took a few moments to pour some hot cocoa for the lumberjack-turned-escapee. "it is unlikely you and I shall ever meet again in this lifetime. Go with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and never look back in regret."

"You are not... planning suicide, correct?"

"No, certainly not, but I expect Blue Cosmos will want to have a chat with me. I have an assault rifle and a couple grenades for such an occasion, but I am no fool. I don't expect to survive."

"Good God, man, that's a hell of a way to think about it." Estel sounded genuinely shocked, especially with the sheer vehemence of his old friend's declaration.

"I was born and raised in a Gulag in old Russian territory. I know what captivity is, and I learned what the grace of God is. Go with God, old friend, and get off this miserable mudball. The men who walked the stars as easily as we walk the roads can show you what true freedom looks like."

-x-

(31 September CE 72, 1200 hours UTC)  
>(Emirate of Orb, Onogoro Spaceport main entrance)<p>

The man sent to pick up the two refugees from the Atlantic Federation was a special security officer, and like every security or law enforcement officer throughout existence he was very good at recognizing people. Even when incredibly disheveled by being on a 30-hour flight. "Estel and Regina Daniels?"

"We are. Who are you?"

"Name's Tyler. I'm a Marine Point Commander stationed at the embassy here in Orb. I'm here to pick you up."

Estel knew to expect this, but he also knew that it could be a false flag. He also knew a very quick way to verify that the man in front of them was legitimate. "Do you have your Codex necklace?"

"Yes, sir, you can check it on one of the airport terminals." The supposed Marine readily handed it off to Estel. All three stepped up to one of the data terminals to plug it in and verify; Onogoro International Airport had taken the thus-far unique initiative to install and synchronize the necessary software to allow Codex verification on the various data terminals around the airport. As such, when plugged in and the terminal was requested to do a search to verify the Codex of the Marine, they were shown his complete identification package and non-classified military records, both of which were so far removed from anything that would be legitimately imaginable by an Earth-bound Blue Cosmos member that it seemed legitimate. Of critical note were the entries for his assignment to the warship _Mjolnr_ and subsequent assignment to the embassy in the Emirate of Orb.

"Sorry, I had to be sure. This is just too unreal, and too easy to run a counter-espionage operation against it."

"Way ahead of you on that note, we have a couple officers around the terminal keeping an eye on the people just in case Blue Cosmos wants to show up and shoot some people up. They want our asses for hamburger, we want their asses for Codex lines. Just another day at the office, if you ask me."

"Things are getting pretty hot," Regina commented bluntly.

"I expect the war will resume sometime around next spring, at the absolute latest by northern-hemisphere summer. The flipside of that thought is a good one: combat action in the summer is a lot easier than trying to fight a winter battle against them. Come on, I have a car waiting outside."

Outside the main terminal, it became rapidly evident in the space of 20 yards walking distance that something was wrong, gauging mostly by the incredible string of profanity let loose by the Marine. After nearly a minute of foreign language foul language, he finally broke down and said something that could be understood by the Daniels refugees. "Where the fuck is my truck?"

"Point Commander, a trio of teenage girls in black and leather saw it sitting there, hopped in and drove off with it before I could stop them." Regina was rather surprised that the person who admitted to being unable to stop a trio of teenage hell raisers was herself a teenager in street clothing but with her Codex necklace worn visible next to a small silver cross.

"Well this is a grade-alpha clusterfuck if I've ever seen one. Call the police and put out an APB on it, they are on a bloody island and they can't get too far with it, even if it is fusion powered. I will radio for another ride, and hopefully round two doesn't get freaking stolen in transit."

-x-

(1 October CE 72, 1000 hours UTC)  
>(Lagrange Point 1, nearby Asgard Station)<p>

"Old arcade games, Dad? Serious?" Veruna asked after she successfully snuck up on her father in the crew lounge on the _Sailboat Reborn_.

"Veruna! I thought – when did you get on the ship?" Despite the question, father, mother and eldest daughter all closed on each other roughly in the middle of the lounge area in the dropship Sailboat Reborn and embraced.

"I had to transfer over to this ship with an aerofighter pilot, something pertaining to security."

"It doesn't matter now, doesn't matter now, we're back together." Veruna did notice but did not comment on her mother being misty-eyed over a reunion that she otherwise thought was a piece of cake to arrange. To her, it was nearly no effort to crack passwords, break encryption, hack networks especially in the pursuit of such a lofty goal as evacuating coordinators from the clutches of Blue Cosmos.

"We missed you, all three of you," her father said.

"We have some catching up to do, but we can do that when we get to the colony. There is a lot to see in the colony, we will have to give you a tour when we get in."

"How are you three getting along? Are the Magi taking care of you?"

"They were, at first, but it didn't last. All three of us are over the age of majority by Magi law – they don't play games up here, they expect you to start making decisions and judgments early."

"Serious? What are you three doing now if you're not in school?"

"I'm the only one of us that isn't in school of some form or another, Mom, but we all have part-time or full-time jobs to go with. Rita is in trade school for medical apprenticeship and works part-time fitting dresses with a professional seamstress. Leiley lives over in the second colony, doing early college courses in preparation for naval jump engine design and works full-time as a colony infrastructure technician contractor."

"And you?" her father asked.

"I live at the GARM facility in Mendel, or I should say I work there and live in an apartment a couple blocks away, but to be honest I don't go home very much. I've been known to spend as much as a week in the server rooms at the research facility without seeing daylight once. I know it's not good for me, but it's right on the cutting edge and it's where I want to be." She wasn't about to admit that she had been known to sleep on top of one of the Quantum Mainframes because it was the warmest of the machines in the server farm – she only need a flat sheet to keep the moving air off her and a pillow to rest well, even in the continuous noise of a server farm.

"Server technician?" Her mother asked.

"When needed, mostly I do quantum computing analysis and data storage management."

"That's...wow. Already?"

"Like I said, they don't play the '18 / not 18' game up here. The Magi-born kids around Rita's age do better than some adults I've dealt with."

"Oh," Regina Daniels grumbled. She slacked her embrace on her daughter; as she did, her hand passed across something in the waistband of Veruna's pants. "Huh? What's that?"

"What's what?" Veruna asked, unsure what her mother was referring to.

"Are you...carrying a gun?" she asked suspiciously.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, so?" Veruna asked in counter.

"You know how I feel about guns, dear," she said in a calm voice.

Veruna took it as something of a warning and decided her stock answer wouldn't fly in this case – most people asked why she carried a smaller piece, in this case her mom wanted to know why she carried at all. Or at least wanted to chide her into not carrying / retaining possession of it.

"Well, Mom, I work at an installation that has been attacked by terrorists in the past, and is still under threat of attack. I work with systems and data structures that the Earth Alliance would literally kill people to gain access to. I have to think about these things, and I think you should as well."

It was clear from her expression that she did realize what Veruna was speaking of.

-x-x-x-

(3 October CE 72, 1400 hours EST (UTC-5))  
>(Earth Alliance Atlantic Federation territory, Old England Territory, Davenport Naval Fabrication Plant (HMNB Davenport), Drydock 3)<p>

Much as the old naval facilities of the United States had been continued for the purpose of naval supremacy by the Atlantic Federation, the British naval facilities were still in use but with a different purpose. Where the old United States fleet harbors (Charleston, San Fransisco, Pearl Harbor, Key West, Seattle) served mostly surface assets and the occasional hunter-killer submarine, The major English stations (Devonport, Portsmouth, Clyde (Faslane)) served a much more secretive and destructive purpose.

The main traffic in and out of the English stations was the submarines, including refitted British _Vanguard_-class, Russian _Typhoon_-class and United States _Ohio_-class 'boomer' (nuclear missile) submarines. Relics of a long-gone era, the Earth Alliance had recovered and resurrected the ancient missile submarines simply because, at the time, nobody else had a nuclear counter-force option and being the only state with working SSBNs made them the terror of the world in the CE 60s...that never was.

The mere existence of the small cadre of SSBNs was one of the Earth Alliance's greatest and best-kept secrets. Two _Vanguards_, two _Ohios_, and five _Typhoons_, all refitted with the last production model Trident D8-A1 Naval ICBMs, used the Davenport facility as their ultimate home when not away from shore. Of late, the tenders began seeing new activity, new ships with a wildly different purpose from the old Boomers.

Warships with ancestors from space.

"Five here at Davenport, six at Portsmouth, five more at Faslane, six at Charleston, three in San Francisco, two in Key West, two in Seattle, seven in Pearl Harbor, and three more on the moon, 39 ships total?"

"Forty, including your ship, the _Ophanim_." Despite the immense progress in the clear threat of numeric superiority the massive amount of new _Archangel_-class ships would provide to the Earth Alliance, Admiral Sutherland was still stone-jawed even while delivering such impressive news. "The lessons of your last battle with Mendel have been taken to heart; the old men well above us have been 'motivated' to not make the same mistake again as we did in the last war. Today we fight new enemies, and as you have pointed out they are not impressed by our old ways. So we play the game by their rules, only to we play it with our deck, our cut and our shuffle."

Natarle Badgiruel, Rear Admiral (officially as of last week – her promotion had been held in abeyance while her conduct was reviewed along with that of Admiral Sutherland), whistled in surprise, though not at the ships or their sheer numbers. "Studying their psychology and motifs now, sir?"

"I find that thinking like a disorganized bastard is difficult, but not impossible. Sadly, it is needed: they are not going away unless we force them to go away."

"Task Force Jokers Wild," Natarle recited the name of their erstwhile foes after she stopped at the retaining wall for the number nine ship tender to look down into the frame of a new warship being built. "In the end, it will probably all be psychology."

"In their own concept, something of a losing psychology already." Natarle shook her head in defiance of her commander's conclusion. "No? Then what is your take on it?"

"When the admiral spoke of his concept for the fleet, he called them 'the wild-card discarded in the tournament game, only to be picked up in a street game.' don't make the mistake that the brass brass are making in assuming that that means they think themselves of lower quality; on the contrary, anybody in the fleet will readily tell you that the 'tournament players' in this game sucked major portions of ass and need to be removed from the tournament the hard way. Their phrasing is referring both to their homeland and to us at the same time: a tournament game played correctly will never be won or lost in a single hand. To them, this is not a tournament game, we are nowhere near big enough to be tournament players in their game, and they're making the unjustifiable assumption that we never will be."

Sutherland would not admit to any one being in existence, not even God if He asked, that he agreed with their position. Unlike Azraiel, Sutherland did not even begin to entertain the notion that the Earth Alliance could be used for anything other than beating the shit out of Coordinators and Mendel. As a form of government, the Alliance was completely clusterfucked from top to bottom and would rapidly collapse of its own weight and numerous failings overnight if the world suddenly woke up and there was nothing left to do battle with. He had suspicions that Natarle believe the same, but both were far too professional and far too ingrained in the Earth Alliance military culture to even begin voicing such an opinion.

"And because we are not tournament-grade, we are a street game by default?" A third voice requested from immediately behind the two flag officers.

The two flag officers returned the salute of the newcomer as was proper. "Captain Roanoke, welcome back to the service."

"This is a candid discussion, Captain, I expect you to speak freely and directly. I don't have time for yes-man bullshit, and quite frankly neither does the Earth Alliance as a whole." Again, Admiral Sutherland looked grim as he said it.

"Well, given that we have all had our asses kicked by Mendel in one fashion or another, I think I transferred to the right department to start working on a way to return the favor." Despite the highly impolitic phrasing, neither Admiral took it as an indirect insult. All three were silent as he stepped up to the retainer wall that the admirals were leaning against. "As I guess, so God shows. _Archangel_-class ships are a good start, but don't bet the farm on them doing the job. It would be nothing for Mendel to trade a few Mobile Armors for each one of these new ships and still consider that a win in their book. That, mind you, is if we get lucky enough to actually take down one of their mobile armors in the process, a feat that I won't bet on."

"We figured that, we have new Mobile Armor-scale weapon systems and new mobile units in development to begin countering the overwhelming advantage Mendel already has in that department," Sutherland said.

"Street game, street rules. The only time we came close to winning was one time of two that they fought fair. When they let loose the chain and truly release the dog of war, it's going to go right for our necks."

"I only wish we could get that lucky, Captain," Rear Admiral Badgiruel commented dryly. "When they finally do cut loose, this dog is going to start by going for our balls, then the handler will come in behind the pooch and cut our necks while we can't stop them. Street game, street rules, and the Magi have a long history of playing very nasty when provoked. Throw in a chaotic variable, like a certain off-the-reservation Star Admiral, and you have an instant recipe for nightmare."

"Our balls...the naval stations on the moon?"

"That is one way to look at it," Admiral Sutherland commented dryly, wondering what gave Natarle the idea to consider the moon to be the nards area of the Earth Alliance military.

"It is the direct way to look at it. As of right now, the only power projection we have is from the moon and from Artemis. Given that Artemis is still mostly useless after ZAFT shot it up, that leaves only the moon, and as soon as we provoke them that's going to be their first strike. If they can pin us on the ground, they can saturate bombard us until we have no choice but to sing soprano as ordered when ordered." Natarle sighed mightily. "I know I am missing something here."

It would be years before the final piece of the puzzle was revealed to Natarle, but the answer to come contained within that piece would be so horrifying as to outstrip even the sight of the nuclear missiles being launched from the ancient submarines housed at Naval Station Davenport.

-x-x-x-

(6 October CE 72, 2000 hours PLANT Standard Time (UTC-4))  
>(PLANT Aprilius 1, Office of the chairman of ZAFT)<p>

"Take a seat, Commander Joule. I have a special assignment for you," Chairman Durandal said by way of greeting.

"Chairman?" Yzak prompted, completely unsure why he was before his NCA so late at night to receive an assignment.

"I am conveying to you this assignment this late at night, not out of any delay in schedule, but a necessity of secrecy. The other members of the Supreme Council have informants throughout the entire military command structure. While in normal practice this would not be a concern, I have need of a special adviser with three qualities and I don't want them to know about it. First, I need a special adviser who has done battle against every major military force throughout the Earth Sphere. The amount of people that have that qualification inside ZAFT can be counted on one hand, and at least two of them are known informants for opposition factions in the council. Second, I need an adviser who is completely realistic and just as importantly very blunt about that realism. While ZAFT is not strictly overrun with yes-men, the amount of such persons is strangely high. Third, I need an adviser that is innately aggressive and is willing to take risks above and beyond the normal call to duty. Again, much like the yes-men, it is not fair to say that ZAFT is overrun with cowards or career-pushers but I have noticed over the past months a trend to move away from direct action and towards placating certain irrational parties on the planet below. Are you with me so far?"

"I follow, sir. You call me because I fit all three of the parameters you listed."

"That, and one other parameter I will not yet discuss. My question then becomes are you willing to build strategies and deliver advice outside the normal ZAFT command structure with the intention of furthering ZAFT goals outside of normal channels or methods of action?"

The chairman's phrasing slightly confused Yzak. "Are you referring to special operations actions?"

"Not directly, though now that you mention it you are one of the few pilots that I would induct into my special operations personnel group. More to the point, I'm referring to command and coordination, not necessarily military action."

"Civilian or military solutions?" Yzak was referring to the necessity of creating strategies and coordinating actions, not necessarily pertaining to military operations.

"Mostly civilian and industrial, though some interface and planning for military actions will be necessary. Any military action to be involved will be mostly noncombat beyond a certain point in time."

"You need a man on the inside, someone who moves about the command structure freely but owes no allegiance to any patrons on the board, and someone who is mostly with the program in terms of expanding away from Earth. Is my read back correct?" Yzak asked after a few moments to digest what Durandal had to say and what his mission requirements were.

Chairman Durandal took a moment to move the bishop on the black side of his chessboard a few squares. Yzak always figured his love of chess to be something that he used as much as entertainment as it was a method of helping him collect thoughts and organize concepts inside his mind. "In short, you are correct. I am not entirely sure how much you are aware of the internal workings of the Supreme Council, so I will need to draw for you a scenario as demonstration."

"Not as much as I probably should be," Yzak admitted candidly, an not surprising answer to Durandal.

"As of right now, in the council there are three major factions. My faction, which thoroughly believes in off-world expansion, is technically the numerically largest of all at six members including myself. A second faction has grown up inside the confines of the council almost illogically; one would think that the necessity of remembering the depredations of the Earth Alliance would be automatic for some people, however in the case of the second faction they seem to forget that we have suffered both war and nuclear holocaust at their hands. This second faction does not see peace as a decent holding point when dealing with the Earth Alliance, their intention is to placate the Earth Alliance to a wholly unreasonable degree. To what end they are attempting to do this, we do not have any idea. A third faction exists of four members, though in terms of expansion they are more or less neutral. What is your opinion of this dynamic?"

Yzak took several moments to answer. "My first guess is that the opposition faction seems to have either a serious mental deficiency or something else is happening there. I would not expect to see any manner of bribery going on, though I have noticed among the PLANTs a lot of people still talk about ties to the Earth Alliance as if the natural state of affairs was the last war never occurred. I take it you get a lot more traction when dealing with the neutral fraction than you do with the pro-Earth Alliance group?"

"I get some results, though so far the combination of neutral and against have not thus far managed to block any of my major initiatives. At the minimum, I would say most of their willingness to operate is political expediency; they know they can be kicked out of their respective command structures very easily for taking irrational actions, especially in this environment. I have not begun pushing hot buttons, but when I do I expect I will get some pushback from both sides."

"And I take it that is where I step in. You need a man to minimize conflict with the neutral faction, need an adviser that can help formulate concepts and plans that would be more desirable to both factions, and needs somebody who is willing to be realistic about everything you intend and still able to follow through with those expectations when they become operating policy. Have I missed anything so far?"

"No, you have the right idea. In short, you would be my senior administrative aide and, to borrow a phrase from Mendel, you would be the power tool I use to clean up messy spots."

"You know this is going get real messy real fast," Yzak said candidly. "The two council members that I think comprise an opposition faction may be dirty; I haven't heard anything official or unofficial, and so far I have not seen anything, but I do believe that they were or are not making judgments in the best interests of ZAFT when they're pushing against expansion plans or attempting to placate the Earth Alliance. The more serious of the two involved is actually more heinous: if I remember correctly, she is a history teacher by trade and she should know that placating tyrants does not work at all."

"I believe I've found the right man for the job," Chairman Durandal commented as he moved a pawn two spaces forward from his starting assault line. "For now, we will ignore the disruptions from the council, and focus on building a secure and aggressive expansion plan. What are your thoughts on, say, setting up an early colony on a planet one jump or two jumps away from Earth as soon as we have a jump ship available?"

Yzak nodded with a smile, though in so doing a glint from one of the queens on the 'Mechwarrior's Chess' board caught his eye. Much as the normal board on Durandal's desk, this one also appeared to have a rumination game going but with all six factions in play and with a lot of otherwise chaotic placements on the field. If anything, it seemed to be a metaphor for the current state of affairs, and a metaphor that Yzak did not disagree with in the end. He figured if he was going to be doing this on a routine basis, he would need to learn the Magi version of chess, because his foes were altogether vicious and chaotic when viewed from the outside.

-x-x-x-

(3 June SL2-12, 1100 hours Terran Standard Time)  
>(Office of the Empress of the Multimage Star Empire)<p>

"Okay, we have the 'What' and 'Who' sorted out, now how do we get to the _Mjolnr_?" Division Commander Gerard Lightbringer asked. "Wizard support?"

"No, no," Executor-Princess Hotaru Tomoe replied. "We can get there by jumping in the same fashion that Kerensky left the Inner Sphere for new lands, though ours will necessarily be different." She was referring to the 'planet-hopping' method of travel that Aleksandr Kerensky used, by which he traveled a distance nearly the length of the Inner Sphere toward the core of the galaxy to settle his remnants, well away from the 'hostile environment' the Inner Sphere had become.

"Well, yeah, we're jumping through parallels and time, and the latter a long way back," Stan replied honestly. "How many jumps?"

"On the ships that will be going, call it forty jumps. Just shy of a year in transit to get there."

"We'll need tanker Dropships to supply the engines, then," Gerald replied. "I take it we will be landing in dead space a lot?"

"We will," Hotaru replied. "We will also need to heavily modify the jump controllers on each ship involved. The _Phalanx_-class ship will need to be a 'throwaway', another abused ride of the Admiralty that can disappear without them giving too much of a crap."

"The 2291 ship, the _Golden Phoenix_, would make a good candidate," Division Commander Caecilius opined. He knew which ships were disdained by his 'micromanager squad' and how they were being squeezed out. The Admiralty Review, however, was not making the mistake of the old Magi Council in trying to wedge themselves between his authority and the ships, per se, just micromanage the naval forces outside his purview. When the Star Admirals began trying to countermand his orders, Gerald would act with the utmost directness. "It's out of maintenance routines, passed over for Nanotech upgrade, half-staffed and most of them are pissed, I don't think they would object too hard to taking a long walk if the Empress asked them. Admiralty wants me to scrap the ship and 'retire' the crew and officers, but I say fuck 'em. If we can put the ship to good use, so much the better."

"I'll Gate out to the ship later today, talk to the Star Admiral and his crew. This is strictly volunteer, of course," Rini said.

"I would not willingly ask this of people unwilling to stay," Executor Tomoe replied. "To answer the question unstated, this is the last campaign for the ship sent; once the shooting is over, the ship will be scrapped out for materials, its guns placed in orbit nearby the colony cluster to be used on new, smaller ships as time goes by." In space, there would be no degradation of components left floating in place, since being a vacuum there would be no atmospheric wear or similar contamination. "The jump core specifically would provide material for nearly a dozen jumpships, and probably would be the first thing to go."

"No problem, in a proper shooting war it would have to be refitted before we could even put it into action," Gerard commented. "At least this way, we can give it a nanomachine refit over the next 40 weeks of transit, and when we arrive it is ready to do battle."

"There won't be much naval battle involved," Hotaru admitted. "Establishing near-space superiority is a priority, but a pathetically easy priority for one _Phalanx_-class ship, much less two. The main problem is going to be..." her sentence trailed off when Gerard smiled.

"Let me guess, suborbital fire support?"

"No contest, that," Division Commander Agrippa commented crassly. The Empress simply snorted, herself trained in the art and understanding of suborbital fire support direction. "Monitors?"

"Not needed," Hotaru replied immediately. "The one thing the locals can do is Monitors, and our guys have a contract with two of the other players to produce some fabulous ones. Infantry, armor and air is the crux of the forces needed."

"Forty weeks, is it?" Empress Rini Atrebas asked.

"It is," Hotaru replied.

"Best I pack heavy, then. Recommendations?"

"Sunscreen, body armor, and urban camo. And some way to amuse yourself on the forty weeks of trip," Hotaru allowed. Magi warships were not the best in terms of creature comforts, nor were they the worst.

"You?" Gerard asked with a lecherous twitch of his left eyebrow.

"Not hardly," Hotaru replied, knowing exactly what he was referring to. "My husband is busy right now, and will be for the next month minimum. Besides, I'll have a huge amount of work to do in transit, certain special devices necessary for this operation to go smoothly and to prevent a nuclear holocaust in the future of the destination." Gerard and Stan both nodded without a word, knowing that she frequently used her husband as a defense against any implication of extramarital activity, even when referring to her special relationship with Empress Rini. It was a very effective defense due mostly to indirect fear, in that there weren't many people who could claim to defeat the Old Emperor in direct combat and her husband was on that short list.

"Start packing your bags, gentlemen," Rini ordered. "We leave in one week, after the force is assembled. Gerald, issue orders for the _Golden Phoenix_ to move to the flotilla rendezvous point. Also check the status and transport availability of the four civilian groups that are coming along."

"Aff, Empress Atrebas," Gerard replied stoically and left the room.

"Stan, I want Commando Resources Management to dredge up full contingents from the list of approved non-magic personnel. Remember, this is a one-way ticket for everyone going, and everyone going needs to be warned. You, me, Hotaru, and Gerald Lightbringer are the only ones coming back. Personnel need to be moved to the _Golden Phoenix_ by Gate Mages, Strategic Mages, temporally if needed. Also, if there is spouses or children of personnel from the _Mjolnr_ still in this time period, we need to give them an offer to go that way, with the clear warning that they may not be coming back."

"Aff, Empress, I'm on it." Stan was out the door moments thereafter.

"And you and I need to go over some operational details on this matter," Rini said to the only remaining person in the room, being Executor Tomoe.

"First off, there is a symbolic issue standing with the Admiralty Review," Hotaru began as she took a seat. "Their negligence nearly had the _Mjolnr_ and fleet killed off entirely, and thus would have ensured no victory solution to Ragnarok. I think such misconduct needs to be re-compensated appropriately, don't you?" Hotaru asked plaintively.

"Oh yes, we need to finagle some orders for the _Mjolnr_ and descendants to see to that little problem. This is not the first fleet they have screwed over, so..." Rini said in retort.

* * *

><p>Author's Chapter Afterword:<p>

This is one of the longer chapters in terms of noncombat (or semi-combat) action in the second half. It took a while for me to write it cohesively, and for that I must apologize.

Note clearly: this is the breaking point. This chapter is where the foundation of coming conflict is laid out for everyone to see and manipulate. Do not think for a minute that Blue Cosmos is not going to use the positions in this chapter to begin formenting their next war. Do not think for a minute Mendel will allow unhindered the production of 40 Archangel-class ships. Do not think for a moment ZAFT will allow anything to come between them and the new dream of interplanetary (and later interdimensional) conquest. The lack of yield in these positions can result in nothing less than sheer conflict.

There is an interesting dynamic I stumbled across when writing this chapter, one that inadvertently echoed real life to a far greater degree than even I thought possible. When viewed at a distance, this story shows three dynamic schools of thought. The first school is the old world, those who have the existing power structures and will do anything to retain that power and control (Earth Alliance, to an extent not yet shown Equatorial). The second school is those parties who wish to escape the old world, who do not want to be governed by old control structures (ZAFT, some Orb and USSA positions). The third position is mostly those people who just want to be left the hell alone (Mendel, Orb, USSA, Scandinavia). Much as the clash of these three parties is making for a shit-ton bloodbath in real life, it will do so in coming chapters of this story.

The noisemaker of the chapter is definitely going to be the Fast Falcon Express, specifically Veruna's use of multiple techniques to get her family out of harm's way. When the Earth Alliance starts losing possession of its victims, you will see the rage increase exponentially. Blue Cosmos will likely become involved at one or more levels, possibly even the military. And on the note of Blue Cosmos, they have a really heinous action in the works here in a few chapters. It will involve one of the old SEED cast, and it won't be pretty. Really not pretty.

The last thing on your minds should be the oncoming cavalry from the lands of the Magi: a whole Phalanx-class ship and a lot of forces. Everyone here who knows their military procedures will tell you that the Magi are about to completely upset the numbers game in their favor, though the reason for it is known only to the Executor-Princess who is calling the shots. There is clear reason for this level of overkill, and you will understand it no later than chapter 12 or so.

Below, I have part 2 of 3 of my explanation on the Star League. This is the juicy parts, the conclusion of the Star Empire Wars and the bizarre shadow war fought between soldiers and shadows in the eons after the war. There is a third part to come in the next chapter, the tale of the Executors, which will bring a little more clarity to the affair and specifically an understanding why an outside party can practically give the Empress of the Magi a set of marching orders.

That's it for me. Stay tuned for more chapters in all my stories.

**NEXT UP**: the forces of each side train hard for the coming battles, even as some parties begin their clandestine operations.

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><p>Review Replies: 8 reviews between release and now, so I have a lot of territory to cover! Thank you all for the input!<p>

**Knightowl 4183**: On battle armor, well, your question will best be answered in the next chapter. As to Eurasian ships, not likely with the mods you suggested. You will see why in the next chapter or two; internal problems are crippling the Eurasians, especially their naval presence.

**Takeshi Yamato**: Your OC will definitely get a workout before the story is over, rest assured. If you are grilling any other ideas for OC, I would like to hear about them.

**Deathzealot**: More Sutherland action in this chapter. You can probably guess he is going to be the EA's command linchpin when the shooting begins, and you may not be far off the mark with such a guess :)

How goes your writing on the JG side story?

The chant used in the second chapter was the chorus to one of the all-time badass power metal songs, _10th Man Down_ by Nightwish. The Magi commonly use it as a catchall to extoll the fact that they didn't start the present conflict, but they will see it through to the end.

The USSA is going to end up one of the power players in coming sets, and each of the nations will have its decided advantages and disadvantages comparative. This is not for balance purposes, but a result of expected development and expertise.

(PS, have you tried the MekTek version of Mechwarrior 4 yet?)

**Sieben Nightwing**: Rest assured, I have not forgotten about your writing, but real life has kept me real busy and not able to devote proper reading or writing time to FFN.

**Sieben Nightwing (Part 2)**: On the 'Flying Holy Shit Kung Fu' (also called 'just plane stupid' by flight-adverse Magi personnel), it may be featured depending on circumstances in the side story Inferno in Chicago.

**Biggie1447**: Good to see I can still get someone's brain going L)

My apologies for the 5-month delay on this one. Real life is kinda unfriendly to my writing pursuits right now, so...

**FraserMage**: Oh yes, you hit the peg there. Slowly, though, the political factors are being squeezed out for operations, so...

**Damrhein**: On that, you can sleep well. The Triangle will be reformed, as will some showing of the results of the new Triangle be shown. I have not forgotten about the Psionics in Mendel's employ, though you can also expect that advantage will not be strictly to Mendel forever...

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><p>The Gripe Sheet: <strong>ADVISORY<strong>: I had some issues with translation in my voice recognition software. Please be on the lookout for grammar or logical FUBAR and report as needed. Thank you.

As usual, all due thanks to **Necroblade**, my beta-reader. If there is any one person keeping me out of the gutter when writing this, it is he.

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><p>Footnotes:<p>

(1): **MAN-P**ortable **A**ir **D**efense **S**ystem

(2): **A**rmor **P**iercing and **I**ncendiary

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><p>HISTORICAL BRIEF: The Star League, Second Star League, and the Executors (Part 2 of 3)<p>

"The final vestige of the influence of the Gods is done. The Negaverse no longer serves the purpose of vengeance. The many worlds [Star Empires] do not stand at a footing of war. 3500 years to attain the silence. Was it worth it?"  
>—Executor-Lord Baigan Nostra, year 2001 of the Star League<p>

The existence of the Star League is itself part paradox and part creative solution to an ongoing nightmare scenario between the six Star Empires that controlled the bulk of known space. The formation of a governmental coalition between the major and minor Star Empires provided the basis under which the ongoing and never completely understood conflict between Empires could be reduced or eliminated. However, the first Star League would only provide a temporary respite in the war, it would be the Second Star League that provided for true peace between the Star Empires.

SECOND STAR LEAGUE: Silence Of The Darkness, Phoenix Light

**SILENCE OF THE DARKNESS**: "Is this where we begin anew?"

The destruction of the first Star League heralded a new and much bloodier phase of the Star Empire Wars. Much as the wars themselves began, it started between just the Magi and the Negaverse, but within five years the conflict spread to all six of the major Star Empires – a case of two-on-four odds that turned out to be exceedingly destructive to the numerically superior side, even despite the advantage of size. More to the point, the Magi had given up any pretense of restraint, assaulting their foes in a randomized pattern with maximum force and minimum hesitation, a combination of tactics that unleashed the true potential of the military state and a seriously infuriated population.

For 252 years, the renewed Star Empire Wars continued at a breakneck pace, with such rampant destruction and capture that two of the four Empires aligned against the Magi – specifically the Illyaris and Dynasty – were forced to bow out of the general conflict with cease-fire agreements to preserve their sovereignty. Ever the ones to claim moral supremacy, the Negaverse continued their intransigence and counter-campaigning even in the face of increasing political dissent from behind and increasing Magi lethality from their front. The sheer fury of the Magi would continue to fuel the conflict to the end of the phase, even well past the point that the most conservative military analysts would have said the Negaverse was through as a serious military power.

The end of the Quarter War came with a decisive campaign, but more or less petered out of its own volition. With the destruction of over 80 percent of the Negaverse combat power, and what remained of that power being mostly greenhorn forces incapable of threatening veteran Magi units, the opinion shifted slowly in the Empire away from their annihilation and toward considering the end results to be an execution of the Emperor's orders. They had broke the resolve of the Negaverse to do battle, they had broken worlds, crushed a people, and in the end they left the 'high and mighty' Negaverse to pick up the remnants of their own arrogance. Though most of the military damage was recovered within 60 years, and notable expansion was again taking place in the Negaverse military within 100 years, the psychological damage from coming so close to outright national annihilation would never be fully recovered – persons were taken Bondsmen in a campaign 750 years later that still stated the Quarter War as justification for their fear of the Magi.

The end of the Quarter War also change the existing dynamic of the ongoing Star Empire Wars. This change was most notable in the alignment of major powers there would continue to be involved in the conflict will through the end. With the Dynasty and Illyaris empires having bowed out of the game in cease-fire treaties, this left the wars be fought as a straight two-on-two battle between opposing factions, leaving no parties in the middle to operate as swing states and no parties to curry favor with or use as an expedient shield against their opposition. This change in the status quo was considered a major victory by the Emperor of the Magi, in that a quarter of the population of known existence was now considered out of the line of fire and could begin rebuilding and expanding, a change of pace that directly matched his assigned goal.

In the centuries after the end of the Quarter War, the relative silence and reduced campaigning would later come to be known as The Calm Era, a time not specifically of prosperity but hallmarked by the relative silence of the lack of battle. Even as they rebuilt, the Negaverse was not willing to openly engage in force in large campaigns against their erstwhile foes; quite the opposite, the Queen of the Negaverse deliberately ordered her forces to avoid engaging in any pitched battles against Magi or New Moon forces, thereby preventing a rekindling of the near-annihilation that occurred in the years after the collapse of the Star League. The Negaverse use this time of calm as a direct opportunity to expand, to train, and to prepare for what they hoped would be a coup-de-main strike to be executed later.

A single strike was planned with the intention of providing the Negaverse ample bait to draw the Magi into a campaign from which they could not readily recover. The source of the bait was simple: the moon that the Star League resided on had been razed to the ground, but the planet said moon orbited had not been completely annihilated by the campaigns and still considered hallowed ground by the Magi. A planned strike against an uninvolved planet that the Magi declared off-limits could create an abattoir that simply generated casualties for the Magi if executed correctly. Forces were mobilized, chains of command were activated, warships were pulled out of mothballs, and exactly 997 years after the destruction of the Star League palace the Negaverse began a new campaign of terror with the intention of demonstrating to the Magi that vengeance runs deep. Operation Crystal Fracture, the assault on Terra Zero, by which point had advanced to mid-90s technology and society above and beyond their prior governments, was executed flawlessly in the space of two weeks and resulted in a planet captured with no more than a regiment total casualties among the Negaverse forces.

Despite their overwhelming victory, and even despite the major coup in finding and capturing the reborn Princess Serenity (who was believed to have been a casualty of the Negaverse campaign on the moon), the Negaverse forces made a critical error in judgment in attacking Terra Zero. The one soldier they failed to kill in their campaign on the moon, an old combat Wizard by the name of Erich Hess, had surmised that one day and Negaverse would attack this hallowed ground for one of multiple possible reasons. The Emperor of the Magi understood this possibility and left the old Mage as a sort of "trip wire" on the planet in a deep cover mission that did not even acknowledge his continued existence among the records of the Magi. When the campaign for Terra Zero began, Retainer (Star Commander) Hess reported back directly to the Emperor of the happenings on planet. With clear forewarning, and more importantly clear knowledge of enemy weak points and timetables, the Emperor was able to immediately assemble a counterattack plan to wrest control of Terra Zero from the Negaverse and keep it out of their hands.

Much as in the campaigns of the Quarter War, the Magi campaign to retake Terra was extremely swift, extremely brutal, and showed precisely no restraint against Negaverse forces. Operation Moonlight Shadow gained its place in history mainly for being another resounding defeat of some of the highest-ranked of the Negaverse command structure, but also for being the first campaign to be waged completely in the open by the Magi Commando Caste, effectively taking them from a semi-hushed formation to being the fourth acknowledged branch of the Magi military and by demonstration the most lethal of the four branches. Even with their best formations in play on Terra, under a full assault from Magi Commando forces deploying directly onto the planet's surface by way of Gate Mages, combined with a full naval assault from Pirate and Zenith jump-points, the Negaverse forces could not hold the planet they had taken a mere week before. To ensure their erstwhile foes did not simply come back with a larger force for another attempt, Operation Moonlight Shadow was also conducted at the same time as multiple other smaller operations were conducted across Negaverse territories for the express purpose of distracting some of their larger and better organized formations from beginning a counter campaign and to tie up possible reserves. These minor operations would later be recorded as part of the main operation and the total campaign was listed as having run for six months, despite the fact that the main effort of the campaign was executed in less than 10 days.

It would once again be the moon, forever designated Luna Zero, that would be the linchpin of this chapter of history. The thousand years on the ground, undisturbed and not participating in the Star Empire Wars, would allow the Retainer to train heavily in his old arts of wizardry and specifically increase his ability to distort space and time to such a degree that he could begin to warp entire dimensions with his skills. It would be this skill, combined with the man-power of the best of the Magi and Commando personnel, that he would use to rebuild the Star League in one instant. With a powerful distortion of both space and time, Erich Hess reached across the infinite parallel dimensions and drew forth a rendition of the moon from another time that had not thus far been destroyed by the Negaverse; with a single stroke, this living rendition of the Star League traded places with the destroyed hulk of the moon. In the span of less than two seconds, the entire annihilation of the Star League had been undone.

The rebirth of the Star League would be the second to last nail in the coffin of the old Negaverse. Such a visceral reparation of one of the greatest tragedies throughout known Existence immediately changed the entire dynamic of the Star Empire Wars overnight. Though incorrectly classified by outside observers, it was widely believed that Erich Hess had reversed time on Luna Zero a thousand years, a skill of such power it was widely assumed (not incorrectly) that the same Magi officer could challenge and destroy any other wizard, military formation, planet or planetoid as was ordered by the Emperor. With such a frightening milestone readily visible to all involved parties, the Dark Moon Star Empire immediately requested terms of cease-fire with the Magi and petitioned for reentry into the Star League, with the unstated addendum that all treaties and/or alliances of convenience with the Negaverse were now null and void. In the space of 72 hours, the Negaverse was left standing alone and still at a state of direct war with two of the other Star Empires, only this time this state of war came with the caveat that the Magi could petition the entire Star League for redress against the Negaverse. The ruling power of the Negaverse had very little doubt that such a petition would be struck down, especially with the thousand years of intervening history to show as proof.

All things considered, the newly-reformed Star League had all the option available to conduct a unified campaign against the Negaverse, but by request of the Emperor of the Magi, did not. Due to intelligence information coming in from multiple Negaverse sources, the Magi had reason to believe that the Negaverse were standing on the precipice of civil war and any action before such a split would simply galvanize the populous of their enemies into a single unified force. It did not take more than a week from the reunification of the Star League for the first blows of the Negaverse Civil War to begin – a split between the rightful Queen of the Negaverse and the 'power behind the throne', what would later turn out to be the Goddess Hera. The split itself was wildly uneven, favoring the proper Queen nearly 5 to 1 in terms of planets and population, but some of the highest-ranking military personnel sided with the opposition and created a significant threat to unification.

The events of the NCW created the perfect opportunity for the Magi to end the war on their terms. Under direction of now Division Commander Erich Hess, the combined might of the Magi descended upon the rebellion forces in the Negaverse, hunting the condemned Goddess under direct orders of the Emperor. Operation Moonlight Thunderbolt, the assault on the Negaverse Remnant, began in earnest with a naval assault on every enemy-controlled planet and only grew in scope from there. By political wrangling, the Emperor also made a case that the Negaverse had been as much a victim in the war as the other Empires, in that they were being used as an engine for revenge grand mal in their prosecution of the Star Empire Wars. This changed the dynamic of the war and technically annulled the standing Trial of Absorption against the Negaverse – the ruling against the Greek Gods (a Trial of Abjuration) took precedence, though rendered any persons involved in supporting the Goddess Hera an instant war criminal.

Due to the now-fragmented nature of the Negaverse command and control, resistance to the Magi assault was uncoordinated at best and nonexistant at worst, despite the remaining hatred of the Negaverse Resistance Front. With no fallback and no reinforcements from the remainder of the Empire, the few forces and planets that had chosen loyalty to the Goddess found themselves overwhelmed by the Magi in short order. In a massive error of judgment, Hera returned to the Negaverse Palace to attempt to restart the Negaverse campaign against the Magi and re-destroy the Star League. She was greeted with an entrapment spell and imprisoned in a tomb of black onyx to await disposition by the Magi.

The Emperor himself saw to the annihilation of the last at-large Greek God. A final duel was conducted between the Queen of the Negaverse and the Emperor of the Magi, a closing battle symbolic of the past 3500 years of war. With the final defeat of the Queen, the Negaverse abdicated and surrendered to the Magi. The Star Empire Wars were done.

**PHOENIX LIGHT**: "Today is a true time of peace, and tomorrow shall also be peaceful. We shall enjoy it."

With the war completed, building the peace became the primary focus of all six Star Empires. First on the matters of business was the induction of the Negaverse into the Star League – the former now known as the Negaverse Mercantile Empire to distance itself from the past nightmares it inflicted. It took days of negotiations between the Executors, the Magi, and the other member states to cement a deal that did not require reparations. Chief among these arrangements was the Magi position, who pointed out fairly that nearly 35 percent of all territory once held by the Negaverse was now annexed Magi territory – that alone was a considerable enough penalty according to the Emperor, and the obvious reward of dealing with the last renegade divinity.

The second order of business was bringing the Magi down from their near-perpetual state of war they had existed at for over 3 millennia. Easily the most difficult of the post-war challenges facing the Star Empires and Star League, the first problem was the necessity of the command structure involved – the Emperor of the Magi had been the standing symbol and ruthless commander of the war effort since the founding of the Empire, and everyone (including the Emperor himself) knew he was the wrong man for the job. With the retirement of Division Commander Hess from active duty, the Emperor's daughter was selected by Trial as the next Division Commander of the Magi, and with the necessity of changing to a peacetime footing she was voted in by the people to command the time of calm. It would take fully 500 years and another change of command structure, but the Magi did finally achieve a level of normalization that retained national integrity without being on a war footing.

The greatest challenge to the Star League was ensuring that the Star Empires Wars would never be repeated. The first example of such a necessity came less than a decade after the close of the major war, a brush-fire conflict between minor states that took wholly five years to resolve because no method of resolution stronger than arbitration was available. A method of solution came obvious when one of the First Six Executors (Specifically, Executor-Lord Sephiroth) became frustrated with the negotiations and accidentally threatened to simply kick both sides' asses just to get them to shut up and quit whining. Within a day, both sides had armistice paperwork on the table and a willingness to sweep the whole conflict under the rug. This result was not overlooked; within a week, plans had been drawn up to form a cadre of Executors, ultra-powerful soldiers and wizards, for the purpose of conflict resolution and promoting the advancement of the member states of the Star League.

The first Executor to sign on was the Old Emperor of the Magi, now officially resigned of his former command and free to act as a neutral broker between the Empires. With his announcement of the first training cadre and recruiting drive, millions of highly-qualified wizards from all over known Existence registered to join. Few were selected, those who had the ability to operate with impartial and cold reason in all actions, who were not afraid to cadge by word, deed or blade any party needed, and those who saw no need for artificial limits on the Star Empires. Even fewer of the selectees stood fast under the grueling training and conditioning program necessary for an Executor, mainly due to the necessity of time involved. The first Executor inducted into the general operations pool from an external source (not an existing Executor, retired Multimage officer or a Planetary Princess) did so 182 years after the end of the Star Empire Wars, succeeding where hundreds had already failed to meet the standards of the Old Emperor, now commonly known as a High Executor. (More will be covered below.)

With a stable defense and expansion, the Star League would grow at an exponential rate as more Star Empires were discovered and inducted of their own free will into the alliance. Despite the times of peace, the true purpose of the Star Empires was never forgotten: to find a victory solution to the coming war Ragnarok, the supposed annihilation of all meaningful life sitting just over the horizon of time. This became the focus of a special cadre of Executors, who act almost completely autonomously to control the progression of the future in such a way that the necessary solution is built in time to fight the war.

In the shadows of Existence, the dark recesses of planets and systems far away from the peaceful home of the Star League, it became evident to the Executors that they were not alone in mastery of the infinite parallel dimensions. Rumors of movements here and there, sightings of unusual warships and flotillas, persons that could not be accounted for, the rumors of shadowy beings and mysterious encounters began to pile up at an alarming rate as the Star League expanded. It would again be Lord Sephiroth that gained the upper hand in the game of shadows, but this answer would come at a terrible price. Lord Sephiroth caught a unit of the mystery skulkers in a position from which they could not readily retreat, and demanded identification. The response of his erstwhile foes was the first defeat an Executor had suffered at anyone's hands since the destruction of the Lunar Palace thousands of years prior; in a protracted sword and spellcraft battle, ten of the unidentified soldiers were able to bring down Sephiroth with the loss of four of their rank, a battle that sent chills through the largely-uncontested Executors.

This result would repeat multiple times over the coming centuries, as the Executors groped for information and understanding of a foe that refused contact at all opportunities despite their marked ability to defeat even the best of Executors through attrition or outright skill. Even the Old Emperor fell to their blades, a lengthy grudge match between the ancient soldier and an ancient representative of their swordcraft. The only conclusive understanding garnered from the encounters between Executor and shadow was a name: Crusaders. (**Author Note**: the Crusaders showed up in one chapter of Archangel's Amazing Adventures, and for good reason. Their existence will be further explained in stories to come.)

Despite the lack of (unclassified) understanding between Crusader and Star League, no actual campaign would be fought between the two parties, and more to the point only one proper war was conducted between the Star Empires, itself short and inconclusive, mostly mitigated by outside circumstance and prevented from becoming a major interdimensional conflict. The Star League had achieved its objective with flair.

Part three will feature the Executors: their structure, purpose, job perks and duties. What you have read above is oversimplified; for thousands of beings who hold the literal life and death of planets in their hands, whose word and deed changes the fate of entire dimensions, a proper explanation cannot be shown in a few paragraphs.


	4. Below The Surface

(Flight Of The Jokers Wild, Chapter 4: Below The Surface)

(**Author's Note**: Despite the word count, the meat of this chapter is fairly standard fare. A large portion of the length is the afterword / Executors dissertation at the end. Damn good to be back!)

(20 October CE 72, 0700 hours PLANT Standard Time (UTC-4))  
>(ZAFT PLANT Armory One, Space Naval Graving Dock L-1)<p>

"She fills out well, Captain," the shipwright consultant commented before he took another bite of his hamburger. "We are nearly a month ahead of schedule. Your men are to be commended on the speed and efficiency of assembling it."

"Is it always this easy, Nikko?" Captain Talia Gladys asked after a few seconds

Shipwright Journeyman Nikko simply grunted as an opening answer, given her question meant multiple things and had multiple answers.

"I see..." Talia took his half-guttural grunt as a final answer.

"My apologies, Captain. That was not my full answer. Your question has multiple answers, I was just trying to figure out where to start."

"How so?" Talia asked.

"Well, if you consider you are asking if building a ship like this is easy, not really. Most of the ship is off-the-shelf technologies, but in-atmosphere assault frames are rare ships, even for us," the shipwright answered.

"No tactical need?" Talia requested for clarification.

"The tactical need has always been there, but the need was usually fulfilled in different ways or by different assets. Atmospheric Assault ships are rare, but they do exist among the Magi. The problem we had was an assault ship usually is a jack of all trades and is easily defeated by the masters of a given form of war. I've gone out of my way to correct as much of that as possible in the _Minerva_ design, where I could, but..."

"You're not a miracle worker," Captain Gladys finished the thought. "The major vulnerabilities are going to be in naval campaigns, right?"

"Aye," Nikko answered. "The _Minerva_-class will have the armor to slug it out with most other classes of ships, but in terms of gun-for-gun action, you'll hold against anything Earth Alliance or local, but not against Mendel-designed ships." He snorted. "Of course, that does not count the Tannhauser. Throw that in, and you can cause some damage to even the _Mjolnir_."

Talia considered the shipwright's latter comment as shocking, but not entirely implausible. On the face of it, a ship of the _Minerva_'s size (350,000 tons) had little hope of even notably scratching paint on a ship the size of the _Mjolnir_ (5,850,000 tons). On the other hand, the _Minerva_ had been designed to carry a directed antimatter weapon designed for smashing fortifications and hardened targets. Apparently, even the Magi figured such a weapon was enough to damage their extremely-hardened superdreadnoughts and it would be a lethal threat to smaller ships in the Mendel inventory.

"The other point of your question is a bit simpler in theory. Is it always this easy to build up military forces? Yes, quite so."

The captain-to-be of the _Minerva_ sighed mightily. It was the answer she did not want to hear, mostly on latent moral grounds. War was not supposed to be easy, or easily prepared for, but here a veteran among veterans of the art had dashed any such hopes.

The continuation of the thought only made it worse. "The Magi have never been slouches in the art of war, but when the Star Empire Wars began, we were still behind our curve. Or, as was the phrase in those days, 'not in the power-band we should be'. It only took us a decade to jump up from peace-time footing to enhanced production routines, and another decade to go to full war footing. For an Empire that was measured in trillions of inhabited planets across millions of inhabited dimensions at that time, two decades to execute a conversion to wartime footing was brutal, but in the long term it was needed."

Despite the truth to his statement, again Talia sighed. She knew something of the history of the Magi; it was now being taught as a three-day primer course to ZAFT officers, since there was a real possibility that ZAFT would be following suit...or possibly going gun-to-gun with the Magi. She had not considered the processes involved in the necessity of mobilizing a Star Empire, nor the scale, and the implied level of horror involved was beyond the pale. On the other hand, the scaling involved dictated those kinds of numbers — and the results were still obvious.

"And you will continue doing it, and we will eventually have to follow suit, in one fashion or another," Talia predicted. "A friend of mine once said: 'Strength is a necessity; there will always be war.' It would appear he was sadly correct."

"Properly correct, if I may venture an opinion on the subject," the Shipwright replied. "Humans cannot escape our most base of natures, regardless of how many thousands of years we put into conditioning ourselves otherwise. We are the apex species of Terra itself, and the rest of the planet is our dominion. Sadly enough, that dominion sometimes even includes each other, not just lesser beings. Every now and again, we sanction and organize such predatory actions, and this is the result." The dismissive wave of Nikko's hand encompassed more than just the hulk of the _Minerva_, and Talia knew it clearly.

"I guess what you're saying, and not really to me so much as to all humans, is that it is time to stop being optimistic and grow up? Embrace our real selves? Something like that?" Talia asked at her most cynical.

"I meant nor implied no such thing," Nikko replied almost immediately. "I meant that one should always be wary that their fellow man may not be far removed from the predators we share this planet with." It was his turn to sigh. "It is our optimism, or more appropriately our free will, that sets us apart from the other denizens of the planet. Any attempt to distort or reduce that free will is detrimental to everyone in Existence — human and nonhuman alike."

"And that is another question worth asking," Talia began, abruptly shifting gears to a subject of personal (and ZAFT-wide) interest. "I've always considered it possible that aliens exist, but human-compatible aliens? Was that some form of in-joke in the Remembrance, or reality?"

"Quite real, though not in the classic sense of porno filmmakers and the more salacious sci-fi authors of years past. Of all the non-humans encountered thus far by the Magi, only the Elves and the Sylves are human-compatible as you refer to. Two species out of dozens we claim and hundreds we do not claim encounters with. Those two groups were an interesting case study. The Elves are, by technicality, a variation of humans that were modified by an out-of-the-way sect of divine beings. We're pretty well sure that they were trying to create some form of master race by enhancing a 'useful form'. Not sure what they intended to do, but those Gods were all dead long before the First Emperor made a name for himself slaughtering Nazis. Mildly ironic, that; the man that destroyed the Thousand-year Reich uncovered a plot for a Master Race project by a sect of Gods some ten eons after they failed, and the progeny of that project didn't actually give a crap one way or the other, they just thought of themselves as superiors...until someone proved otherwise. Irony works in mysterious ways some days."

"And the Sylves?" Talia asked.

"A stranger study still," Nikko answered immediately but pensively. "Sylves, as a species, are genetically polymorphic in the presence of other bipedal carbon-based beings; through continual contact, they will rebuild themselves at a genetic level until they become compatible with their 'host', but it takes decades to centuries to achieve that result. When the Elves came across them, they were taken captive and in roughly twenty generation loops were a biologic match to the Elves. This suited the Elves just fine, who were looking for a group or two for the purpose of serving as second-class citizens and labor drones. What they didn't count on was the changing of attitudes over the centuries since the societies essentially blended; turns out Sylves are also capable of causing the spatial distortion necessary to create magicks, and can do it better than Elves on the average, so that advantage died off quick. By the time we humans encountered 'em, they were living in near-equality, though some of the old attitude was present. Because they were compatible with the Elves, they were almost completely compatible with us from the word 'go', and in roughly a century they were a recognized match."

Talia silently cursed when she saw the approaching technician with two clipboards of paperwork. This was one of those matters that most everyone in ZAFT wanted clarification on, and she could tell the conversation was just getting interesting. After all, Elves and Sylves were reasonably close to humans in most particulars (the latter had a scientifically interesting reason for it, just the same). There were far more nonhumans in Existence, and Talia had both a professional and personal interest in them.

"Paperwork, Captain, Shipwright," the Tech prompted as he approached. Another transplant from the Magi, he was less than completely formal about approaching superiors but he was also one of the best at his detail. No sense rejecting an otherwise effective tech on appearances of formality, when they really weren't even needed in the shipyards of Armory One.

"Excellent," the Shipwright replied, by his tone meaning anything but excellent. "Engine status?"

"Way the hell 'head of sched', boss-man. We'll be ready for an in-place pressure test day after tomorrow."

That was a shocking tidbit of intel to Talia. "What went...right?"

"Actually, everything did, ma'am," the tech answered. "It's not often we can install and mount engines without something going pear-shaped, but this one actually did. Kinda makes me think someone designed it to be assembled by humans, not miracle-workers."

"I can see where that would help," Talia noted wryly. She had been involved in the design and planning phases of the _Minerva_ build, and she had done her best to chivvy the engineers into making it reasonable for the dock workers to build and maintain the ships. After all, it was rumored these ships would be the first into new planet atmospheres, that they would have the best hope of surviving should something go wrong and the best variability to support the pioneers of new planets. They had to be reliable and easily maintained for battle and civilian duty.

Quite possibly, she figured, it would be her ass depending on a well-maintained _Minerva_ for atmospheric insertion into a foreign atmosphere somewhere else in the galaxy. She did her best to make sure it was done right, which usually meant making it doable easily.

It was a cheery thought for the Captain. She gladly signed off on the paperwork.

-x-x-x-

(23 October CE 72, 0500 hours Lima (Local) time)  
>(Equatorial Power Distribution Transformer station 6)<p>

"I can argue all day with Mendel about their asinine policies and lack of restrictions, but I know I can't argue with them about things like power generation and distribution."

"Not a bad philosophy to take, kiddo," the senior electrical technician groused.

"We got this right?" the junior tech asked before he made the final connection.

"Yeah, it fits the diagrams and instructions. Juice it."

The junior lineman made the final connection to the transformer coming from Mendel's latest ICF fusion power plant. With one simple connection, the active transformer system came online and began 'reading' the attached cables for resistance, connections and by extension lengths, all factors of which were critical to optimum power balancing and transmission. Of course the transformer required some very judicious reprogramming out of the box: these units were designed for a Magi-engineered power grid, which had almost all their cable running below ground, not the Equatorial power grid which was mostly above-ground (pole-strung) wiring. There were other differences and all had to be adjusted for, but the meat and potatoes of the power-generation issues were handled in the ICF power plants.

"Looking good, looking real good," the senior tech said.

The timbre of the transformer changed on a dime, and was shortly followed up by a warning beep. "Maybe not," the younger tech groused.

"Spoke too soon," the elder lineman admitted. "Distribution Rail 6 reporting no terminator on end of line."

"We put that terminator on ourselves," the junior tech whined. "I remember it, we had to clear that tarantula off the pole before we could put it on."

"Don't remind me," the senior lineman groused. After their display of mutual fright seeing such a massive and woolly spider guarding the lines, they had decided to attack it with an old standby for dealing with oddball creatures. Judicious use of a crowbar had splattered the spider, and thereafter was of use in clearing its nest off the end of the line. After that, they were able to finish up with the cable for a day.

"Why would it be reporting no terminator, then?" He looked at the reported length of the cable, then looked at his notes. Somehow, the cable had mystically lost 5500 meters of length in the week since it had been run. "Sir, think the cable has taken damage?"

"Lost length?" The junior lineman simply nodded. "How far down the line?"

"10,430 meters or so."

"Mount up, we need to get these things repaired and working so the salesmen can come through and get everyone signed back up."

The junior tech complied, even over his own internal protest on the matter. It was certainly not the duties that gave him pause; nowhere else in the Equatorial Union was he likely to be making ten earth-dollars with his education and experience. It was not the fret over rerunning lines that caused hesitation; again, this was one of the best-paying jobs for a high-school dropout willing to take an apprenticeship.

The problem de rigeur was the truck they had been assigned. If the junior Lineman did not know better, he would have guessed their line truck was leftover from before the Reconstruction War. A more pressing problem was the senior Lineman, who drove the old and heavily abused line trucks with a vengeance over some of the nastiest roads in the Equatorial Union. Equating the ride to bumper cars was a slander to the senior lineman, given that you were expected to get out of the bumper car after the ride attendant said time was up. The junior tech thoroughly expected he would die from whiplash within the next couple weeks at the most, such was the beating he took every time he mounted up.

Much as average, the ten kilometers of hard ride were jarring to the junior tech. Still, he did not have a HVDL (2) so he was technically not legally allowed to drive the truck. Even still, he doubted he would do as bad as the senior tech, but he also doubted it would be much better. This was an exceptionally crappy road in a nation not particularly famous for smooth transit routes.

"Something up ahead," The senior lineman groused. "And a line down."

"What the hell is that?" the junior tech asked the windshield.

"Some kind of animal?" Was the guess that rang most true to the pair of techs as they continued the drive up on the likely-deceased culprit.

"Close enough guess, sir," the junior tech groused after a minute more of approach drive.

"Wonder what happened?"

"Well, there's your problem," and the junior lineman pointed to the offending item.

"Chainsaw against a power line? What the hell was he trying to accomplish?"

"Stealing power, by the looks of the wire over there," and a wave of the hand indicated a line that was heading to a makeshift distribution box, and from that distro box to a series of houses.

"Darwin reaps his dues once again," the senior tech said before he began considering how to unscrew this problem.

"Sir?"

"Oh, just something I picked up from a Mendel lineman. When I was training in with her, same thing happened south of here. She had a low opinion of anyone dumb enough to try tapping a live transmission line to steal power. She said, 'Darwin reaps his dues', referring to the process of natural selection by stupidity."

"That, from someone from Mendel?" the junior tech requested from clarification.

"From one of their linemen, no less," the senior confirmed.

The junior lineman was silent in contemplation of this twist. He knew he did not like their philosophies, yet they held the same philosophies as he did. Something was not adding up in his mind...

"C'mon, kid. I've already shut off the distribution bar for these lines, let's get this line patched up and head in for a day."

Of course, this task would not end there. The family involved would need to be informed, the police and coroner would have to inspect the scene, and paperwork would be filed on the incident. Such was the necessities of a lineman when someone did something this dumb with live power lines.

-x-x-x-

(2 November CE 72, 1100 hours UTC)  
>(In stationary orbit around Terra)<p>

"All this scrap...they're really picking it all up?"

"Yeah," the Professor answered calmly. She had given up on being frustrated with the dumb questions and simply decided to roll with it. Every Junk Guild tech and planetside politician that came along for a ride had the same question, though it was hardly an unreasonable one.

"And we're helping them haul it," Kisato continued in a matter-of-fact tone. She was slightly less inclined to be civil to the dumbasses that asked the same questions time and time again, but at least she wasn't threatening to throw them out the airlock as she did the first several guests they had.

"This is a major project for the Junk Guild," Liam commented, working through a logical procession of his usual briefing materials. That he had run the disjointed briefing enough to have memorized it was mildly disconcerting to him on a level, but far from impossible. "More to the point, this is a massive undertaking for Mendel. The population in L4 is less than the manpower of the Junk Guild, and they are on track to outpace us in total salvage and construction work by the end of this month."

"How?" the guest asked.

"Technical skills—" Liam began, but was cut off by the Professor, who had a different theory on the matter:

"Willpower and desire." She crossed glances with Liam, and decided to backtrack a bit: "Technical skill factors into it a lot, but most of it is desire to do the job and willpower to keep doing it. These guys are driven; they have a purpose and they're going to do it."

That was not an answer calculated to make their latest diplomatic ride-along feel any better about the matter. Still, it matched his briefings on the interlopers and it was an endearing point. Given his political allegiances, he knew well the meaning of the word 'tenacious'.

"It will take years, even with a full-on effort by both ourselves and Mendel," Liam parroted the established estimate timeline. "We have gone too long without cleaning up this mess on our own."

"They called it an 'interdimensional recycling program' if I remember correctly," the guest said. "Have they said anything to you about it?"

"Yeah, they said that existence specifically is not a closed system," Liam answered in a less-guarded tone. The question was way off the beaten path from the common concerns of tourists on these salvage runs, and he didn't have an answer he had rehearsed before. "Matter moving from one dimension to another does not disrupt the movement of space, time, or material in either of the involved dimensions. Otherwise, crossing dimensions would be impossible."

The Professor added a twisted tale as reinforcement to Liam's report. "I heard what I am about to tell you from a Star Captain of Battlemechs, whose sister was a Combat Wizard. There is a principle among the old-world Magi, a dimension with nothing of note used as an interdimensional dumping ground for dangerous goods. A properly-trained Combat Mage can dump most small targets into this dimension with a single spell. I forget the name of that spell, but it can swallow a whole planet when used by the best of Wizards. Doesn't do any notable harm to the dimension it is used in, but the target, well, they get to free-float in vacuum. No stars, no sun, no way out, no hope. Supposedly there are a few pretty nasty monsters that were cast into that pit, that live off the scraps tossed into the void by the wizards. I can't confirm it is true, but it is the best example of how far you can go without causing problems." (3)

Again, the tale was not one calculated to put him at ease about dealing with the Mendel forces. On the other hand, it did allay his fears from his science weenies talking about black holes in proximity to Earth should a ship enter or exit near space to the planet from another dimension. That was more relieving to him than most other concerns; being the master of the earth sphere would be a moot point with a black hole in close proximity.

"We have attracted some interesting neighbors," the ride-along commented smoothly.

"Handy neighbors, though," the Professor mused. "Kisato, signal the cleanup crews that we are in position to begin receiving material, then move to your pod and join the effort. I want to be out of here in less than 24 hours."

"Where's Lowe?" Kisato asked fairly.

"Probably asleep," Liam commented. "Should I wake him up?"

"I will," Kisato answered with a bit of a feral smile. She enjoyed rousing Lowe when he was supposed to be on duty, since she could be mean and teasing about it. It wasn't often he was caught napping, but...

As the Earth Alliance politician watched out the front window, half a dozen Works GINN and Raysta MS had lined up with large chunks of floating debris for the Re H.O.M.E. to transport. Once Liam began directing the machines to where they needed to load the scrap, it became clear to the guest what his intent was: jigsaw as much material into the large hold bays as was humanly possible. Getting it out of the bays would be the province of the worker exoskeletons at Mendel — he had already seen them in action, and was extremely impressed with the capability. Provisions would have to be made in the next round of negotiations to allow Mendel to export or license those designs, given they were so handy in spaceborne operations.

"So, Interior Minister Harkess, are you convinced now?"

"Pretty much so," the Interior Minister replied evenly as he watched a Mendel combat MS (he could not remember the name of it) bring in a sizable piece of debris. "Years to go, of course. And what of Mendel's ambitious asteroid mining project?"

"I don't know any details," the Professor lied. She knew what the timetable for the project was, she simply would not speak of it in his presence.

The Interior Minister wanted to call her on her lie, but wisely said nothing. At this point in the game, everybody that might be involved in the project was already in the know, though persons that were likely to be involved were being silent about it. In all reality he expected as much; the potential profits from an asteroid mining expedition, not to mention the possibility of collecting more rare materials such as used in the sword carried by the mobile suit on this ship, would be a staggering benefit.

Harkess decided a different tack was in order. "It will be a good day when the debris is cleared once and for all." How it was cleared was of little concern to him; that it would be cleared was the great hope of space-faring people the world over. If Mendel was clearing it, no big deal; the rest of the EA political command structure was planning on seeing them killed off anyway, so they would not profit from their trepidation for long. Harkess did not really care one way or the other, but he was in the minority in LOGOS and accepted that position phlegmatically. Someone well above his station was calling these shots.

He had no way of knowing that the decisions made above him would not be in the interests of anyone in the Earth Alliance.

-x-x-x-

(12 November CE 72, 2000 hours UTC)  
>(Mendel 2 Colony, Continent 2, Marine Training Center)<p>

"Good Gods almighty, this is one sick bastard," Galaxy Commander Michaels groused while looking at the crime scene photos taken by the investigating Marines.

"That's not exactly what I had in mind, but it'll do, sir," the lead Military Police officer on the case answered. "No prints, a few fibers, and a hair strand that is already in the queue for DNA reads."

"Evidence?"

"By the book, sir, but precious little of it. This guy knows how to spoof most of the usual procedures."

"I guess the only thing left would be to have the Strategic Psionic come over and check it. Do we want to involve her yet?"

"I advise against, sir. So far this is one incident; if we get word of a repeat offense, we may have to call her in, but this is small potatoes compared to the serial mass-murderers on the planet below." She was not referring to a common criminal, but to the Earth Alliance.

"Aff, agreed," Carlos Michaels nodded twice in thought. "Start beating the bushes like you usually do. Something is bound to bolt when you get nearby the right shrub."

"Aye, sir," the two Marines come to attention and leave the room smartly.

For a few seconds, the Galaxy Commander regarded the pictures in front of him. It was a hard thing to look at the pictures of the dead and mutilated body, but in the end it was not terribly different from what he'd seen in person in combat. The major difference in this case, aside from the fact that it was a crime and not an action of war, was that the victim was a teenage noncombatant, a high school student heading home from his evening classes.

Still and all, as much as there was a savage murderer now inside the colony somewhere, the day-to-day affairs and the major objectives still have to be seen to. He could set aside the dead teenager by way of his training to focus on his objectives; a cold and hard reality of his existence was that he now lived in a long steel pipe surrounded by the cold inhospitable wasteland of space, and he had to focus on making sure that vacuum stayed on the far side of the steel tube.

"Tony, I want the latest hull integrity report on my desk in 15 minutes or I want to know why. Sandy, immigration and naturalization briefing in five minutes. Anybody have the latest reports from major incidents for the colony?"

His direct adjutant, Star Colonel Beatrice Waterly, handled this request verbally rather than handing over paperwork. "Only one report, boss, structure fire on 32nd St on continent one caused a pregnant lady to break her water, but there were a couple MedTechs on scene to take care of that problem. She is now the proud mother of a pair of twins that have absolutely shocking neon violet hair."

"Now that is some good news for a change. What of the structure?"

"Building is a total loss, boss-man. A couple engineers are seeing to what is left of the building with a bulldozer and a construction IndustrialMech. The building should be torn down in roughly 2 hours or so. No plans so far to rebuild or put something else there."

"Give it time, somebody will come up with a bright idea." Galaxy Commander Michaels made a note to look into possibilities for that area, since he knew his Marine presence was very thin in that sector of the first continent. Putting a small barracks or a response facility in that area would do well to improve reaction times.

"Here is the latest reports for immigration and naturalization," and their eternally-active boss received a single electronic note tablet. "Long and short, four unofficial immigrants, seven official immigrants and nine teen naturalizations. No adult naturalization completions, though we had two that tried and will be retaking their test next week."

GC Michaels took a quick look over the numbers presented on the tablet, though he found the results so underwhelming that he simply grunted. He expected far greater numbers of immigration, especially since Mendel was technically going out of its way to attract people to come to the colonies and specifically get out of the line of fire of the oncoming second war. Considering the last week as compared to this week, something had caused a significant decline in immigration. "Sandy, look into this. I want to know why we went from a thousand immigrants last week to barely 10 this week."

"I will check into it, but there's no guarantee I will find an answer. If this is Blue Cosmos, it is very unlikely that the Earth Alliance would actually report that on the news wires. It would be in their best interest for such stories to simply not occur."

Tony made an exaggerated show of looking in with only his head into the boss' office. "Hull integrity report is out. Want the paperwork or just the bottom line?"

"Three minutes, I believe that is a new record. I'll take the Cliff Notes, if needed."

"A couple engineering teams did some finishing work on some of the patches on the south end, but at this time it appears that the hull is completely secured."

"Excellent, I rather dislike the thought of depressurization. I am pretty sure most of the civilians on this colony would agree with me." The Galaxy Commander made a couple notations on separate electronic note tablets. "Given that both of you are on a fast-track to promotion, I expect initiative and forethought from both of you. It applies both now and after that promotion, provided you pass your Trial of Position. Now, anything else you think I should know?"

Tony was the one to speak up with any new miscellaneous information. "One very important detail, sir. A very hardy wench opened a new tavern three blocks upspin from where we are right now. They are offering cheap beers and a very wide selection of mixed drinks and cocktails. Prices are a little higher than average, but so is the quality of their drinks."

Galaxy Commander Michaels nodded thoughtfully at this new revelation. "Very good Intel, Star Commander. I think I will have to recon this establishment after my shift is done. Of course, I will need backup when I am doing my inspection of this facility. Any volunteers?"

"I am pretty sure we can assemble a team for this very important mission, Galaxy Commander." Sandy folded her arms akimbo and leaned back against the office door. "I would like to be the first to volunteer, if possible."

"If the boss is buying, I'm pretty sure I can convert a few beers to raw calories," Star Colonel Waterly volunteered herself.

Tony had the irreverent comment of the day: "I'm in, boss. Let's do 'em all."

-x-x-x-

(16 November CE 72, 2200 hours UTC)  
>(Earth Alliance, Eurasia Territory, former India territory)<p>

"This is the scoop, guys. We're approaching a Watchmen house, one of their so-called safe-houses for fleeing Coordinators. We have orders to firebomb the place, and ensure everyone inside is dead. Nobody escapes to tell the tale. Follow?" The cell commander asked calmly.

"Roger that, sir!" the new guy on the team half-shouted. His operational experience was limited, but his jacket (paperwork) showed someone good with firearms and ruthless towards the enemies of their blue and pure world.

"Coming up on deploy point," the van driver said.

"Lock and load, people!" Magazines went into firearms and bolts were pulled to chamber a round. Within seconds, every weapon in the vehicle was charged except the unit's light machine gun, which the new guy was putting a belt of rounds into by the time the others were done. With a pull of the bolt charger, he was locked and loaded three seconds later than the rest.

"Stop point here!" the driver declared. As soon as his lights were turned off, the side door of the van slid open to allow the four-man team to exit.

The new guy was first out and onto the ground, where he could lay down a base of fire if the Watchmen cell had security out. After a few seconds of observation, it was readily apparent that they did not have security in any major quantity around their facility. The other troops surged forward of him, and once they took cover positions he jumped up and resumed the advance.

The driver was a smart one; he had stopped with a stand of trees between himself and the farmhouse, so the team would deploy onto the grounds without drawing undue attention to themselves. Past the trees was the true problem of the operation: the four-man cell would have to cross an open horse pasture , no cover and no major terrain to get to the house in question. It would not be a pretty result if the target building had sentries and were caught out in an open field under gunfire.

"Ready to cover," the new guy declared.

"Entry team moving now," and the cell commander had one of his riflemen move forward of the rest of the four-man entry team.

"Gunner to commander, no movement around structure," the new guy said. The commander ignored it; tactically, you never assume there is nobody in a given area until you secure it and confirm there is nobody there.

The dash across the horse field was made medium-fast, not slow enough to make them prolonged targets, not fast enough that they could not respond to a threat. It took them four minutes to cover the gap from the treeline to the outer structures on the household. The barn checked clean; only horses, no people. The tractor shed likewise checked empty, as did a utility shed and a couple of wood racks.

"Team, form up on the southeast corner of the house. Reggie, prepare a satchel charge."

"Way ahead of you, boss," the demo expert replied as he hefted the device in question and pulled open the pouch that held the detonator pull-string.

"Stacked," the rear-guard / long-range specialist declared, meaning everyone was in position.

"Move out," the commander ordered.

The four-man element surged forward to a large window. After a quick check, the pointman cleared out from the wall, raised his assault rifle to the window and cut loose.

The screeches of civilians caught unawares under gunfire were audible even over the sound of the trooper's rifle work. A couple pistol rounds came back through the window, though these were unevenly-aimed and completely missed anyone outside. With his weapon run empty, the pointman moved to the left to allow the commander forward; Once in line with the window, he dumped his submachine gun magazine into the two surviving persons visible in the room. "DEMO!" He shouted.

The #3 guy in the stack pulled the arming tether on his incendiary satchel charge. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" he shouted before he hefted the charge into the middle of the dining room, where it landed between the bodies of two dead ladies and displaced a roasted turkey onto the floor.

"CLEAR OUT!" the leader shouted. Immediately, the four assaulters turned from the house and ran for the tractor barn, which was sufficiently distant that they would not be caught in the blast and ensuing inferno.

About the time the four reached the barn, the fifteen-second fuse on the satchel burned out. When the fuse hit the detonator, it loosed a small but potent shockwave through a brick of Compound 4 explosives. Unlike most commercially-available explosives, C4 will not explode by lighting it on fire, it takes a shockwave (such as from an adjacent brick of C4 or a detonator) to set it off. When the first brick detonated, it chain-reacted five adjacent half-kilo bricks, creating a hellish explosion that cored out most of the lower level of the three-story house. Needless to say, those who were enjoying a dinner before they were cut down by machine gun fire were explosively redistributed around the area to a significant degree; investigation teams would take days to find the bulk of the remains, some scattered as far as a half-kilometer from the house.

Had the device been nothing more than 3 kilos of C4, that may have been the end of it. The house itself would still have been condemned due to structural damage, but there would be no further destruction. As was initially intended, the device was as much pyrotechnic as it was explosive, to make sure that there were no survivors and to send a message to the Coordinator-defending Watchmen group. In amongst the six bricks was several White Phosphorous grenades, which contents was distributed liberally across the ceiling and structure of the building. When explosively released, WP material burns at several thousand degrees, and against exposed wood and cloth there was no hope for resisting the chemical flame. It would be the pyrotechnic effect that doomed two adults and three kids in an upstairs room, hiding from the gunfire below.

"Command, gunner, I show house is lighting up real nice. No activity around the structure."

"Roger that, good op. Let's bring it —"

"Scratch that, command, I show two running from the back of the house toward the north."

"Do 'em," the commander ordered of the gunner.

The new guy raised up the stock of his belt-fed machine gun and centered his eye behind the thermal sight on it. With a healthy lead on the front runner, he started laying down three-round bursts into the runners. After about a third of a belt, he got the first runner across the back; he or she fell forward while at a dead run and skidded several meters before stopping cold. The second runner made the mistake of turning back to check on the fallen, making a shot to her a simple affair. A pair of short bursts put the teen's body on top of the already-downed target, and the gunner laid down a couple more bursts to make sure the job was done.

"Got 'em both, command."

"Bring it in, we're done here."

"Purifying our blue world, one rat's nest of Coordinators at a time," the new guy said with a clear smile to voice.

-x-x-x-

(17 November CE 72, 1000 hours Lima (Western Pacific) time)  
>(Office of the Chairwoman of the Emirate of Orb)<p>

"This meeting is now called to session," Cagalli began formally, then decided on a change of tack. "Eh, drop the formality for this one. Not like we're going to be doing anything substantial here except planning our next high-level moves."

"She has a point," Rondo Mina Sahaku noted.

"Athrun, you're in on this one as well," Cagalli said while looking over her shoulder at the door to the room. "Grab a seat."

"Can do, ma'am," he said in a mostly-official capacity before he took a seat on the same couch as Cagalli, but not so close as to raise suspicion.

Sahaku politely didn't state what was running through her mind on the subject: _I'm going to need to make sure that arrangements are available for when they do decide to get married. It will be very good for Orb, and very good for our relations with ZAFT and Mendel, but it's going to shitcan what little relationship we have with the Earth Alliance still. _A quick look around the meeting told her at Kisaka, Ramius, and Simmons were pretty much on the same page as she was on this matter, and that Athrun wasn't actively fooling anyone in the know.

"Well, where do we begin, terrestrial, near-space, or long-range space planning?" Murrue asked, to help divert from what she thought was some rather obvious tension between the two.

"We'll start terrestrial; we're not likely to get flattened by ZAFT or Mendel unless we screw it up royally." Rondo commented.

"True," Kisaka admitted.

"For the record, we'll knock Scandinavia and South America off the list. Those two countries are not likely to do anything to us unless we go out of our way to make ourselves pariahs."

"And if we did that, Scandinavia would be far less of a worry than what ZAFT, Mendel or the Earth Alliance did first," Athrun noted with a raised eyebrow.

"Or multiple of them," Kisaka commented mostly under his breath.

"Equatorial, any noise?" Cagalli steered the conversation back into proper track.

"They're working slowly toward their own Mobile Suit program. Word is they're going more along the lines of Earth Alliance equipment types, though I wouldn't rule out something from the Mendel arsenal from under the table. They still don't have much of an offensive naval force, so power projection is out of the question for them." Kisaka was looking over his notes from his own briefings on the national intelligence estimates run over the past weeks in preparation for this planning session. Affairs like this had a lot of personnel supporting the decision-making from afar, sometimes as many as hundreds of spies and analysts at a time massaging materials needed by the senior command staff.

"I heard they were working hard towards getting their national electric infrastructure up and working, as well," Captain Ramius opined of some noise she had heard when she last passed through Jakarta on business.

"They are, and that is eating a lot of their manpower, but a fix like that is a one-shot: once Mendel gets them going again, they won't have to fix it again unless something happens," Erica Simmons said. "And until they get their power grid up, all those personnel are tied up working the lines and not working the Mobile Suit assembly plants."

"Good point," Cagalli acknowledged. "Official estimates?"

"About another three months for their power grid, six months short, eight months long-side for their first MS plant, which is a Strike Dagger plant. They've got two other plants planned, one for a variant of the Forbidden Gundam for underwater combat units and another one that is classified — we don't know what is going into it, or coming out of it."

"Political leanings?"

"Neutral, though leaning towards the South Korean arm of the Republic of East Asia at the moment. They aren't overtly hostile to anyone, and seem to have dropped their grumblings against Mendel. It's also believed that they have opened trade negotiations with ZAFT for finished goods, so they may be off the table for the time being."

"Okay, we'll consider them neutral for the time being, but with their prior leanings they may be a possible stringer for the EA," Cagalli decided on their position vis-a-vis the Equatorial Union for the purposes of this discussion. "Republic of East Asia."

"Inasmuch as it is possible, they are working towards Mobile Suits at a slower pace than Equatorial. For now, they are working on improving their ground armor, since they really don't have the focus or resources to do much of anything at this time." Kisaka gave the ground report from what his intelligence assets had on hand for the meeting.

"Politically, it is a rat's nest in that country," Rondo Sahaku noted gravely. "East Asia wasn't really in on the game plan that the rest of the Earth Alliance was running. When a significant portion of their forces were wiped out at JOSH-A, the country suffered monstrous riots because the civilians saw right through the Atlantic Federation propaganda. Those riots really haven't died off, per se, they just come and go almost at random. Additionally, the old South Korea territory is for all intents and purposes in open rebellion against the Republic government in Beijing. If that gains traction, it will not be pretty."

"Yeah, like the Atlantic Federation needs an excuse to set up camp this close to us," Ramius groused.

"Political?" Representative Athha asked.

"Depends on who you want to listen to, but if you take a collective message from all the various voices, they can't decide which hand they want to use to try and find their own rear end. So long as nobody wins in the short term, we have effectively nothing to worry about from them, because they couldn't decide what they want to do from one minute to the next minute."

"And now for the last of the real stringers, Oceania."

"Yes, ma'am, Oceania," Kisaka hesitated a moment before he drew in a sharp breath. It was several seconds before he sighed gustily, during which time he was reading over his notes. "They're doing something. I don't know what, we have assets working on finding out, but they have security on it that would have made the old Lockheed Skunkworks envious."

"What are you thinking? Aerospace?" Ramius asked Kisaka.

"At this point, would not surprise me," Kisaka replied. "If they even got close to replicating Mendel's fighter superiority, it would give them serious advantage in atmosphere and at least allow them to break even in space without having to shell out for Mobile Suits."

One of the first — and loudest — lessons learned from the Second Battle of Jachin Due was as simple as it was brutal. Elsewhere in Existence, other governments and organizations had not written fighter aircraft off as a lost cause, much as had most of the governments of the major states here on Earth. The Task Force Jokers Wild had proved very adroitly that fighters existed that could do battle with 2 or more Mobile Suits and would have a reasonable expectation of success.

"Their decision is likely short-range," Rondo Mina Sahaku opined. "Aerospace gives them advantage, but the Mobile Suit is right now the sine qua non of ground warfare; if they don't make that move and make it soon, or at least do some form of armor that can equivocate it like the USSA is doing, they will get flattened the first time the EA bypasses Carpentaria."

"All right, we'll consider hardware at another time. What about political noise?" Cagalli diverted the course of the debate.

"ZAFT lap-dogs through and through, with hints of playing nice to Mendel. Again, unless we make proper pariahs out of ourselves, we're unlikely to taste their blade," Sahaku commented before Kisaka could say the same thing in a different phrasing.

"Fair enough, though we need to consider the possibility of a rogue threat here, same with Equatorial and Republic of East Asia. Aerospace and naval for now, we'll review possibles in series with other threats."

"Well, if we work on countering a small hint of the Earth Alliance capabilities, we should have no problem dealing with Oceania," Erica Simmons suggested. "And that brings us to everyone's favorite neighbor," she continued with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

"Eurasia first," Cagalli requested. "The Atlantic Asshats may be the greater threat, but they have farther to go to get here. Theoretically, Eurasia could launch a bombing raid on us right now without issue."

"Eurasia is, for lack of a better description, stuck in the middle of world affairs, and they are not happy about it," Mina said. "They have the Atlantic Federation with a knife to their back and they have the ZAFT / Mendel co-op in front of them with a rifle to their face. Not exactly a nice position to be in."

"Screwed if they go back, screwed if they try to push forward," Cagalli put a summation to Sahaku's metaphor. "Only way out would be to sidestep the major players."

"And they can't do that by treaty requirements," Kisaka groused. "They are, at this time, reluctant pawns in a game that gives them no hope of victory and little hope of survival as an intact, stable country."

"We need to give them an indirect way out when this blows up again," Captain Ramius opined.

"When that happens, we'll have to review options at that time," Mina Sahaku fronted. "There are too many variables right now to give them an easy out or an indirect out. If we made plans or gave overture about it right now, it would be viewed as a supreme sign of weakness, trying to buy off a potential conqueror, something to that effect."

"I had no intention on moving immediately," Cagalli assured them all. "Military?"

"They're working on upgrades to their fleets of Linear Tanks and Linear Artillery, as well as purchasing the older 105 Dagger and Dagger L units from the Atlantic Federation, as the 'Lant group upgrades to Dagger L / Windam teams. They have a few new surface combatants in commission, but nothing out of the dry-dock or expected to go active for at least a year. And, as you mentioned, if they got desperate they could one-way a bombing campaign to us, but that would exhaust what is left of their air force since they wouldn't be getting them back intact." Kisaka flipped pages in his notebook. "Nothing else to report for their military."

"Any intentions?" Sahaku asked before Cagalli could.

"Keep their country intact and reasonably riot-free, as far as anyone can tell," Kisaka commented. "They don't have the political capital right now for external campaigning, and they know it."

"All right, we'll assume that they are out of the game contingent that they don't have a miraculous shift in civilian opinion." Cagalli based her estimate on the simple reality and historical precedent that governments were often overthrown for fighting wars on foreign shores without good cause — such actions tended to piss off the civilians of said countries, and some days that is all the motivation it took to cause a revolution. "We'll still plan on air and sea defense against an incursion, say, in support of Atlantic Federation aggression."

"So, that brings us to my former employer, the Atlantic Federation," Captain Ramius sighed after her statement. "Colonel Kisaka had me look into things over there, hit up some of my old friends, similar." She sighed again, considering her phrasing. "They're preparing for a hyperwar campaign against Mendel, on the assumption that Mendel's defensive acumen can't stand up against a single, large, rapid and well-coordinated hit from an outside party. Everything is on the table — new Mobile Suits, new blue-water ships, new Archangel-class ships, even some projects that sound frightening from the rumors."

"And if they turned that capability against us?" Cagalli asked for clarification.

Murrue shook her head., but it was Kisaka covered the direct answer for Murrue. "Wouldn't matter what we put up as a counter. They'd go through the Onogoro defenses faster than a chainsaw goes through saplings. In that case, our only hope would be a lot of assistance from Mendel, ZAFT, and possibly the USSA. No way we could cut it on our own, but if we could stiff them for as little as a day, we could get some support from other nations and turn their initial thrusts back."

"Okay, what can we do to, well, if not render ourselves immune to assault, then defend ourselves long enough for assistance to arrive?" Cagalli asked plaintively. Her position was predicated on a very simple military reality: the Emirate of Orb had zero hope of permanent defense against a minimum of half of Earth's military might — potentially up to three quarters of the military force on planet, if the Republic of East Asia and Equatorial Union forces sided with the Atlantic and Eurasian forces. Such odds were only successfully defended against in the worst of wet dreams generated by half-assed military fiction writers. No competent military officer — or a competent military fiction writer — would assume that an otherwise small archipelago nation could defend against three quarters of the rest of the planet, and no person in the room was making any such noise.

Those numbers also did not include the possibility that if Orb made themselves a hard enough target, the Earth Alliance would simply write off the main Orb territory and use nuclear arms to eradicate any notable resistance. Given the sociopath previously in de facto control of the Atlantic Federation (Muruta Azrael), nuclear genocide was considered not outside the realm of possibility. Nobody in the room, least of all Cagalli, had any assumptions that the Atlantic Federation was actually abiding by the Junius Treaty and the requirements to dismantle any N-Jammer Cancellers they may have stockpiled before the treaty signing, nor would they have halted production of new Cancellers. Such a dire estimation was also why Mendel was helping to train Orb for defense against nuclear blitzkrieg strikes, just the same as they were preparing themselves for it.

"Our options are limited for advances, Lady Cagalli," Erica Simmons noted dryly. "We have new Mobile Suit projects in development right now, and we have the best personnel in the Earth Sphere in our research teams, but we also suffer from being the smallest nation with the smallest military budget of all. Miracles are not out of the question, but I'm not betting on them. That said, we have options in our existing platforms, and Lady Sahaku can cover those."

Rondo Mina was not expecting to be put on the spot so abruptly, so there was a brief moment of hesitation in her demeanor before she picked up. "Our dev projects are top-notch, for all they lack size or scope compared to the Earth Alliance or ZAFT. They will help us keep parity, but we also have a lot of existing hardware that can profit from upgrades. We have intelligence sources in Mendel, as you all know, and one of them has turned a gold-mine for us: radar and turbine engine systems capable of maximizing the output of our systems to an absolutely unholy degree."

"Wait, you have access to Mendel's radar systems now?" Athrun asked in shock.

"We have their systems and principles compromised to the point that we can begin upgrade retrofits to our existing platforms. Mind you, this is not a 1-for-1 on their sensor systems; anything Mendel fields will still be well in advance of ours, but that is mostly due to them having over an eon to game these technologies before us. That said, even half-equivalent systems would knock out any advantage the Earth Alliance thought they had, and give us the ability to burn through N-Jammers in close or medium-range warfare."

"The engines?" Cagalli asked.

Kisaka continued with a logical extension of the applications. "High-power turbines and APU systems (4) would give our helicopters the ability to mount beam weapons, and we can produce heavy hunter-killer helos like the USSA has without issue. Additionally, if we were to refit those turbines and radars onto our existing warships, we could expect a threefold increase in range and performance of sensors, at least double our effective missile range, and a miniaturized turbine engine would give us the ability to produce high-performance cruise missiles capable of holding enemy fleet assets at bay."

"Another consideration is in Mobile Suits," Rondo continued with her "On land, the major limiting factor of our systems is power — most Mobile Suits have enough charge to run for roughly three hours before they need a recharge, less if they are heavily engaged. If we put in a small engine and APU that feeds off their existing fuel bunkers, given the expected output of a half-ton APU unit, we could triple the battlefield expectancy of our units even over some expected upgrades such as doubling the sensor and beam rifle power on the Astray units."

Cagalli mulled over the considerations of such upgrades. "How hard would it be to make those refits, Erica?"

"Textbook, once we figure out how to make the upgrades and begin manufacturing the components. There should not be any surprises in engineering terms," Erica replied with more confidence than she actually felt. The M1 Astray unit was extremely finely engineered; modifying it would be a challenge regardless of how she turned the problem over in her head. On the other hand, intel on ZAFT had shown that they were doing some aggressive retrofits as well as new designs, so it was far from impossible.

"And the ships?" Cagalli continued.

"Simpler still," Kisaka took the heat off Erica. "Our ship designs all have slack built into the designs; we can add quite a bit to the ships with little trouble. Scheduling may be a bit difficult, given the losses we took in the war, but when a ship comes in for repair or refit, it is a simple task to have the components waiting on the dock for it."

"Okay, if it gives us more time to hold against the barbarians at the gates, I give the order to commence at earliest possible," Representative Athha declared the official position on the matter. "They will make noise, but too bad as far as Orb is concerned. We don't exist at their behest, and we have a right to defend ourselves by any means necessary. We will exercise that right to the fullest extent, while upholding our principles to the end. Now, all we need to do is convince Mendel that we are on the level, and ZAFT, and we should be is a semi-safe position."

It would be that sentiment, the upholding of the principles of Orb, that would write their future. In some ways it would be good, in others bad, but always with an eye toward their principles.

-x-x-x-

(26 November CE 72, 0800 hours Lima (Alaskan) time (1800 UTC))  
>(Southern Pacific Ocean, roughly halfway between Oceania and South America)<p>

"Drill time," the Admiral of the fleet said. "Chief of the watch, initiate the drill throughout the fleet."

"Aye sir," the Chief of the Watch said with a savage smile before he issued orders to the commo personnel to relay the orders.

At 1802 UTC, the waters around the fleet of South American ships shrieked with the sounds of battle klaxons. This was not the first drill of this deployment, and the Admiral had no intention of making it the last. If he expected his forces would survive against the Atlantic Federation when it came time for Round Two, they had to be ready to give far better than they received.

"Flight Operations, begin your deployment," Admiral Isabella Martinez ordered after the remainder of the Flight Control positions were staffed.

"Aye, sir," the Flight Boss replied, himself three ranks below the Admiral. Unlike Mendel, The USSA had retained the traditional military policy of referring to all officers as 'sir' regardless of gender or affiliation.

"Admiral, call from Data Center," A bridge hand noted, and handed her the growler phone.

"Martinez," she prompted the other person on the line.

"Admiral, Data Center, Colonel Jimenez speaking. I am requesting permission to loose Queen Latifah in this exercise," a certain burly and secretive officer requested.

Martinez weighed her options, but they were only two. She had brought the monstrous thing along for the purpose of testing it, and even loading the abomination on the ship had required modification to the entire front section of the ship to allow it to launch along the centerline of the ship and thus not capsize it. That had been an ambitious three-month project just the same as assembling the damn thing, but no man would bet against it being a deadly weapon. In essence, she had traded six of the normal 12 Mobile Suits carried by her carrier for a single, monstrous mobile weapon platform. And she had the choice to deploy it or not.

"Jimenez, deploy authorized no earlier than 1815 hours. I want my fly boys to have some good, solid practice on these targets before your toy goes in behind them and finishes up for good."

The Colonel, an otherwise good-natured and loyal man, simply laughed at the irony of her reasoning. "Would not be practice without something to practice on, no?"

"Damn straight, Colonel, and if that hunk of whoopass is half as deadly as you say it is, we'll be out of targets to practice on before the deployment is over. Unless you can gin up another supply ship of targets and fuel?"

"I'll make some calls," he paused as the catapults slammed forward on the deck, which caused a lot of noise throughout the hull of the ship, "but no promises."

"Exactly my point, Colonel. 1815, no earlier. Bridge, out."

The bridge hands took to chatting, some nervously, others excitedly, about the use of the 'special weapon' on board the ship. Everyone wanted to see it in action, and the first (and, technically, only) _Spengler_-class carrier in the USSA fleet had been specially converted to make it the primary transport and deploy unit for the monstrous weapon.

-x-

(1815 UTC)  
>(In orbit around Terra)<p>

Star Colonel Mindy Gars had been awoken by the Captain of the dropship _Sailboat Reborn_ when he noticed increased activity on the one USSA _Spengler_-class carrier. Star Colonel Gars, who normally went by her callsign 'Cobalt' in reference to her cobalt-blue hair, did not hesitate in taking to the bridge to watch the action on the ship's downward-facing cameras. Century Commander Lightbringer had ordered the salvage teams in the debris belt to keep an eye on anything suspicious or interesting on the planet's surface, and it just so happened that the object of interest in their present field of view was the USSA main naval forces.

"Another drill?" one of the weapons officers asked nobody in particular.

"Aye," Cobalt replied immediately. "These odd-and-end objects are likely targets, designed to look like enemy ships on sensors."

"And their drills shall be bloodless battles, until such a time that their battles become nothing more than bloody drill," the Captain of the dropship commented, though his was a recitation of orders from Division Commander Joan d'Arc, who established new and higher standards of infantry combat excellence for the Bladesmen during the bloody Quarter War phase of the Star Empire Wars. It was those improved standards that had made the Marines of today, which had allowed a bare cluster of Armored Marines to take over Jachin Due even in the face of determined defenses.

"Aye," Cobalt echoed. She agreed with the analysis wholeheartedly, and would forward it over to her direct CO (Lightbringer) with the raw video for detail work after the drill was done.

"Oi, something is up with the carrier," one of the sensors officers said. "Front part, where they normally store the Mobile Suits and launch them from, is opening up from the top,"

"That's bizarre," the Captain said. "Why would they need a top-open?"

"Launching something big?" the helmsman opined. He had no idea how prophetic his guess would be.

"Wait, something isn't — Sensors, zoom in on that opening," Cobalt ordered.

It was the work of a few seconds for the camera to zoom in and refocus on the ship. "What the hell is that thing?"

"Some kind of large mobile weapon or something?" the helmsman noted.

Cobalt was silent for a moment, mulling over what it could be. When the hatch finished opening, enough light was on the object that she realized what she was looking at. "Holy shit on a stick," she swore with complete reverence.

"What is that monster?" the Captain asked.

"Oh fuck me," Cobalt continued. "That, ladies and gentlemen, is a package of multi-purpose whoopass called the Quin Mantha."

"A WHAT?" The weapons officer half-shouted. "Quin Mantha? The Dark Moon's favored Newtype Mobile Weapon platform? Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot, over?"

"You and me both would like to know that, gunner," Cobalt answered his extremely crass question spelled out in NATO-style phonetic. "First, I'd like to know how or where they got the design, second, I'd like to know where they got an engine to run the damn thing, third, I'd like to know how they've flown this shit under the radar for this long, because building something like that is not a trivial affair."

"This some SERIOUSLY bad juju, ladies and gentlemen. If I remember my old training right, that one mobile weapon can tear apart three _Guild II_-class Dropships in five minutes," the Captain commented.

"Four minutes, if the pilot is an A-rated Newtype or better," Cobalt confirmed. "And, given that the Earth Alliance is on a severe racist kick, it is not outside the realm of possibility that a lot of Newtypes would have emigrated to the USSA, Orb, or Mendel. I'll bet two months salary that they have at least an A-rate, possibly an S-rate Newtype in there."

"They're launching it — time to see how well their new toy runs," the sensor operator said coldly.

-x-

(1820 UTC)  
>(USSA <em>Spengler<em>-class Carrier _Freedom_)

"Flight Control, this is Latifah, readied for launch," Captain Rico said. It was he who chose the codename for the unit, as Queen Latifah was close enough to the unit name without immediately invoking the actual name. And, much like the namesake, the Quin Mantha had a very notable (and possibly dangerous) ass on it.

"Latifah, Flight Control, cleared for launch. Watch your fuel on hovering," the Flight Boss cautioned.

"Captain Rico, Mobile Unit Latifah, Launching!" As he drove the throttle to the forward stops, the unit began a sluggish ascent but rapidly gained pace; the dual-stage fusion reactor that powered the machine also provided the main engine thrust for it by way of carefully venting the second-stage plasma out through magnetically-shielded engine nozzles. The thrust provided by the engines was well in excess of any turbine engine, and was what gave the smaller Fireball Aerofighters their incredible speed and power. The blast from the engines had required the launch deck area be specially reinforced with non-flammable graphite plate and seawater cooling systems to prevent the thrust from the Quin Mantha cooking through the keel of the ship (and oh, by the way, sinking an aircraft carrier in the process).

It only took ten seconds for the Quin Mantha to completely clear forward of the ship and begin its descent. This was the first and trickiest test of the new unit, a special hover system built into the skirt of the unit to allow it to hover over the ground (or, in this case, the sea) and move independently over any needed terrain that it could not reliably stand on. Once he set the auto-hover control computer to give him five meters clearance over the ground (sea) level, the system took over and applied enough thrust to bring him to a dead stop over the sea. It did some jinking with the thrusters and apogee motors before it settled down into a stable hover.

"Damn, hover system is sweet," Rico noted for the consumption of anyone listening in on the radio. "Performing basic maneuver tests. Flight, if you want to get some more target practice in, I'll be a couple minutes."

"Flight rogers your traffic. Bird Wing, commit in on target group Charlie at this time, stay clear of the big guy."

"Bird group, roger and wilco," the fighters that had been politely holding station off the starboard bow of the carrier moved in on the target field for another several runs at the simulated enemies using simulated munitions.

Rico did some high-speed hover maneuver work, not a simple task in a new and technically prototype craft. To anyone's knowledge, Quin Mantha had been designed as a space-use area-denial weapon, it had never been intended for rapid-mobility combat in atmosphere. The USSA was breaking new ground in ass-whooping technology, even if they could not demonstrate until they uncracked this surprise on the Earth Alliance.

"This thing handles like a dream!" Rico half-shouts as he does a near-perfect stoppie with the massive mobile weapon. "Man, command, where do I sign the lease on this thing?"

Colonel Jimenez simply laughed at the pilot. "Son, even in your wildest wet dreams, you couldn't afford it."

"Man, but damn if this thing ain't a long way from my poor old Strike Dagger. I'm going to put it through some more paces before I get to the real work."

"Officially, Rico, you're no longer a Strike Dagger pilot," the Colonel commented, now assured he was the right man for the job. "This is your baby now. Make sure you bring it back in one piece."

"Oh, damn straight I will, sir!" Rico said. "Going to do some auto-balance and auto-hover tests now; all pilots on this frequency, be advised that I may be jumping at or above 1-5-hundred feet during these tests."

"And Latifah damn well has the thrust to get up there, so consider that a soft safe flight level for now," the Flight Boss ordered.

"Bird Lead confirms 1-5-hundred as MSL, switching to medium-level interdiction attacks. Bird Flight, take it up to 5-0-hundred and reengage."

"5-0-hundred, roger that. Bird 4, check left," and said pilot began a sweeping roll-bank up and left with intention of going up to the ordered flight level.

-x-

(1830 UTC)  
>(In orbit around Terra)<p>

"Excuse me while I go shit a brick, sir," the weapons controller said.

"Yeah, buddy, there's a line for the latrines right now, on that note," the Captain groused. "That's frightening shit."

"No doubt," Cobalt replied. She was used to doing what the Quin Mantha was doing right now, using integral hover systems in her mobile unit to maneuver over water, but by the same token she normally did it in a Gundam that weighed in, at its absolute heaviest, at 95 tons. The lightest a stripped-down Quin Mantha would weigh would be 150 tons, and if they expected to have the fuel to do what they were doing for any major length of time, the nautical demon probably weighed in closer to 300 tons. "That's some seriously high-speed shit."

"Well, we now know the USSA is bidding to join the ranks of serious players, and I think they just made a very loud noise with their first roll of the dice," the sensor operator opined.

"Fuck it as a space platform, if they can get the bits working in atmosphere that thing would be an absolutely unholy naval dominance platform," the helmsman said.

"Merchants, you have no sense of purpose," Cobalt half-chided them; everyone could tell it was in jest. "You're not thinking large scale here. This isn't just a space platform, or just a naval dominatrix, this is the whole fucking shooting match in one package. It is by default space and land warfare; that's what the Quin Mantha was originally designed for. We're watching it tear up on the surface of the ocean, so add more capability. No aerospace pilot is even going to think loud about trying to mess with something that has that much firepower, so there is your aerospace dominance. If those hover systems can be calibrated and elevation-adjusted, it can handle impassable terrain, so there you go. If it is built to spec, the armor on that should be able to handle shallow-depth submerge, so now it can do anti-sub and anti-naval MS work. Literally, this thing brings the pain any damn place it wants to, and you'd need a good warship or two to even think loud about slowing it down, like, maybe, several of our ships?" Cobalt blew a raspberry, herself rather miffed at the advance their erstwhile ally had made without anyone else knowing. "I can tell you now, I want no part of trying to tangle with that thing."

"Wow, if we get into it with the USSA, we are so boned," the weapons officer said.

"They're starting their gunnery drill now, guys," the sensor operator commented.

-x-

(1835 UTC)  
>(Ocean training area nearby <em>Spengler<em>-class carrier _Freedom_)

"Latifah, Admiral Martinez. You are cleared for gunnery operations, unrestricted operations pertaining to engagement zone. Show us what you're made of, soldiers."

"Fleet, Latifah, roger order package." Rico turned off the radio transmit, leaving only the intercom to the other, silent person in the two-seat cockpit. "You ready for this?"

"And I was just beginning to have fun with your wild flying antics," the copilot / HSA Gunner declared. "Just say when."

"I'll take a few passes at the engagement zone with the heavy guns, before you mop the floor with the remaining targets," Rico judged. He maintained no illusions on this matter: he was good as a gunner, especially having been schooled under one of the best in the USSA (specifically, Edward Harrelson), but the HSA Gunner for the unit was a paradigm ahead of him and easily in the same league as the Magi elite pilots — possibly as good as the Angel Team pilots.

"Fifty bucks, your kill saturation doesn't go above four per pass."

"Why me?" Rico griped for not the first time since he took on this assignment.

"Why you? Why me? Why any of us?" The HSA Gunner retorted at her most acidic. "The same reason as any other USSA hardass. We're here because the Earth Alliance are dirty bastards that need their asses kicked up between their shoulders. It's a grungy job, but someone has to do it, and the USSA wants the best, so they called on us."

In the time the HSA gunner had taken to retort the veteran pilot in front of her, Rico had managed to sink five of the target buoys with a single pass of the machine. It was strangely different from his run against target patterns on land, and quite a bit faster. The Gunner had to admit, his time in the sims was paying off handsomely, and confirmed what she thought from the beginning: Rico was an unrealized Newtype, where the combat stress of prior battles was beginning to blossom his talents in the here-and-now.

"Fifty bucks, honey," Rico declared after his third pass had netted five again with the main guns. The HSA gunner responded by way of sneezing on his hand that was reaching back over the back of the seat. "That is grody, kid."

"Something in here is dusty," she complained. "Engaging remaining targets." The sound of the 30 Funnels launching from the back of the machine (technically, the detachable tail binder) was as haunting in real life as Rico could have imagined it. They had been tested over land, but not with full-up weapons and he was not in the machine at the time.

Funnels, the heaviest combat measure of most Newtype weapon systems, were initially designed for use in space or microgravity atmosphere; they lacked sufficient engines and lift surfaces to do anything in atmosphere except fall to the ground when released by the controlling unit. With the advent of the gravitic lattice system, most commonly used on Magi warships to provide or cancel gravity, certain other interested parties took advantage of the technology for weapons purposes; in this, the Magi were schooled briefly on the application of the own technology. The designs acquired by Edward Harrelson included the use of Gravitic Lattice in the funnels, which was more of a power hog than the beam cannon in the unit. Combined with USSA high-energy capacitor technology, the new funnels had much higher life expectancy than the original designs — estimates were on the order of six shots and maneuver instead of the old Illyaris / Dark Moon standard of 2 shots.

"Engage at will," Rico released her.

HSA Gunner Specialist Tina focused her mind on the control systems of the various Funnels launched by the machine. Time was of the essence — The capacitors in these units would hold a significant charge, but just moving them in atmosphere ate at it. On the other hand, she had no problem talking to and moving each unit in three dimensions. Moving the dummy bits around at the land base was actually more difficult to her than moving them around out above the ocean; it only took her a second to get the bits into position to begin her phase of the attack, though it was still a challenge. She had less than a week of practice overall.

The movement of the funnels was enough to tax her, but not enough to prevent her from using the beam cannons properly. She fired them in groups of three, each shot striking a target floater and putting it under the waves, two groups of shots per second. After five seconds, the seas were cleared of all the practice targets.

"_Madre de dios_," Rico groused in his native language. "It bloody works as advertised — actually better than advertised."

"Not bad for a little kid, eh?" Tina asked at her most sarcastic.

"Never questioned your ability, kid," Rico replied with half as much sarcasm. "Did question your age, and for a reason."

"Hey, I'm fourteen. The Magi start them off at twelve."

"We're not Magi, and thank God for that." He activated the radios in the machine. "Flight, this is Latifah, returning to base."

"Roger that, Latifah, you are cleared to RTB. Good shooting, both of you."

Tina was silent for part of the trip, until she let fly something that caused Rico's heart pause: "Mendel is watching us. Star Colonel Mindy Gars, of the Jokers Trump formation. And she is frightened of the thought of having to fight us."

Tina could not see the smile on the face of the pilot sitting a meter in front of her, but she could sense it.

-x-x-x-

(30 November CE 72, 1205 hours UTC)  
>(Mendel II Colony)<p>

Leiley looked out across the center spire of the colony, and immediately recognized what went wrong. "Ain't this a bitch," she swore to nobody in particular.

"A cold, wet one, at that," the junior Colony Systems Technician in her team agreed.

"Radio it in while we move. We ain't got all day," Leiley ordered.

The greenhorn technician, technically lower ranked than the Junior Tech, pulled the microphone from the radio pack she carried. "Central from team seven, come back," she said just before she kicked off to follow the rest of the team.

"Seven, Central, do you have confirmation of the issue in rain sector nineteen?"

"Aye, sir, Seven has isolated the failure, appears to be a busted fitting on the south side of Hub C-4. We're moving now to inspect."

"Roger that, Team Seven. Resource crews are on standby if needed."

"You hear, boss?" The radio carrier shouted up toward the remainder of the five-man team.

"I heard," Leiley answered. "Move it up, kid! The peeps down below are waiting for their rain!"

"Yes, boss," she replied by rote. It wasn't that the greenhorn disliked the job, or disliked the command staff, it was that Leiley Daniels was so energetic about her job the phrase 'driven' was frequently used to describe her, and not always in a positive fashion. Leiley was exhausting, both in and out of work, and it showed a lot of the time; how someone who had almost died on her way to Mendel could have so much energy was a bit of a mystery to the others.

"Crossing distribution pipe nineteen, use caution," the junior tech warned everyone, and for good reason. If someone crossed one of the high-pressure water jets in the microgravity area near the central spire of the colony, it would almost assuredly blast them toward the land mass below. While a fall of ten kilometers per hour was easily survivable, coming into contact with the rotating land mass of the colony (which rotated at a relative pace of eighty kilometers per hour equivalent) would be assuredly fatal. Such a blunder would be an agonizing several minutes wait before the inevitable crunch on the ground for the poor sod that made such a mistake.

Leiley stopped at a clear zone to wave the three greenhorn techs through, making sure they did not cross one of the high-pressure jets farther down the pipe. Once the Junior tech cleared, she crossed the pipe herself and resumed the march toward the leaking sprayer pipe. The Senior Colony Systems Tech pushed off hard to catch up to the trainee with the radio, so she could use it. "Central, Team Seven, please kill water to Rain Feed 9."

"Roger that, terminating water supply. Any idea what went wrong?"

"Aye, looks like the pipe from the main to the distribution block shattered. Get me a new pipe set and a distro block in route, the pipe is a kill but I might be able to save the distro block with some bench work."

"Roger that, parts crew has been dispatched. ETA 5 minutes."

"We should have the busted pipe cleared in five, but not the distro block, boss," the Junior Tech noted.

"Patience, grasshopper," Leiley said in a clearly falsetto Chinese accent. "Ours is not to race the parts crew, ours is to fix the damn thing that blew up." One of the trainees in front of Leiley sniggered at her comment. "And you three get to do dirty work, for there is no surprise here," she continued her false accent for effect.

"Yes, boss," all three replied in the same droll tone.

It was another minute before they arrived at the damaged fitting. "All right, people, chain wrenches and break-free, let's shag it," the Junior Tech said, referring to the two things that made pulling pipes apart easier (chain wrenches for the manual effort, break free lubricant / penetrant to loosen the pipes if stuck or corroded together).

"Way ahead of you," the male greenhorn on the team said. Originally of Equatorial territory himself, the one male greenhorn among the three in Team Seven did not begrudge her the energy she showed. He had been in Atlantic Federation territory more than once during the war, and was himself convinced that someone needed to manhandle Blue Cosmos in a completely messy way. He figured Leiley had come to the same conclusion and was throwing all her energy into keeping the homefront in working condition so the combat-trained personnel could be outside kicking ass as needed.

The process of removing the sprayer pipes from the distribution junction was simple. Each pipe had an octagonal brace section on it adjacent to the distribution block to facilitate easy unscrewing — despite the size of the structure and the necessities of water involved, these were only ten-centimeter inside diameter pipes with holes pre-drilled at certain intervals to allow water out. There was nothing special involved, and even the fittings were otherwise standard ten-centimeter threaded sections that were sealed with a crush washer and teflon tape. Essentially, a household fitting writ far larger. Two pipes emanated from the distribution valve block, one headed for the C-4 hub and one headed for the south end of the colony (specifically, the lunar-side cargo dock).

"Pipes cleared," The Junior Tech declared after both sprayer fittings were loosed.

"All right, now time for a dirty trick. Mindy, time to get a little workout," and Leiley waived the radio operator over toward the distribution block. "You get to pull what is left of this fun thing. Activate the mag-plates on your boots and lock down, you'll need it."

"Ready, ma'am," Mindy said timidly.

"Put your hands in the top rims of the fittings, push down and turn the whole assembly counter-clockwise. Since the distro block is still attached to what is left of the old feed pipe, the whole busted mess should come out."

"Oh, I get it," Mindy says as she twists the blown pipe and distro block clear of the main feed fitting. "This is one of the original distribution valves, cast as one solid piece, right?"

"Correct," Leiley nodded her approval. "For some reason lost to all engineering knowledge, they had the valve block and feed pipe cast as one unit from the factory. the engineers from the _Mjolnir_ took one look at that and laughed, since a failure in either part made it a lot harder to fix them. The Mendel-issue blocks are threaded standard fifteen-centimeter pipes and fittings with tripolymer crush washers to ensure a solid seal. No more of this one-piece construction crap."

The radio beeped, signaling someone had jumped on the channel she had set for their unit. "Team Seven, Central, come back," the radio blared at them.

"Team Seven, go ahead," the radio operator replied.

"Team Seven, be advised that your parts transport has suffered a mechanical. We have a recovery team dispatched to finish the ferry, ETA now ten minutes."

"Yeppers," Leiley said with forced cheeriness after the delay was acknowledged. "It would not be a Jokers Wild op if something didn't go wrong somewhere. Unfortunately, today, it just so happens to be us."

-x-x-x-

(7 December CE 72, 1400 hours UTC)  
>(ZAFT Colony Aprilius One, office of the Chairman of ZAFT)<p>

"Our plans going forward are dependent upon the successes of others, or at the minimum the acquiescence of a certain third party. I think we all know which we would prefer; having a second stalking horse in the great space race would be far better than simple tepid acceptance of our superiority outside the atmosphere."

"It would give us competition, which may detract from our own merits and successes, sir," one of the researchers included in the meeting replied candidly. Given that Yzak did not have to deal with him on a regular basis, and his opinion was usually the whiniest of the included civilians in these briefings, he never bothered to learn the researcher's name.

"I must respectfully disagree, Chairman," Captain Gladys rebuked the researcher almost immediately. "Initially, Mendel will have a one-up on anyone else involved in the race, that much is a guarantee. Anyone that has been free-roaming the stars for fifteen millennia has all their ducks in a row in terms of technique and will definitely know all the best planets to stake claim. That advantage will only last two, three generations maximum if my numbers are right; their size is their inhibiting factor and it will not take us long to outstrip them in the numbers game."

Chairman Durandal raised a warning hand. "Hold, both of you. This is not a debate on the solvency of competition; we can worry about our rivals when we have the rivalry going. Getting to that stage is the running issue we need to worry about for the moment."

"Aye, sir," Talia answered by reaction.

"First consideration right now is the production of the Jumpships, which cannot continue until the new Jumpship shipyard station is built, which is stalled due to resource shortages. Asteroid mining is supposed to correct this issue; what is the present status of these projects?"

Yzak had this one, since Chairman Durandal effectively assigned him to keep tabs on the Jumpship project and related disciplines. "The hold right now, as noted, is resources, and for Mendel that means salvage in the debris belt and it means asteroid mining. Presently, the first _Garm_-class cargo ship in Mendel deploy is gearing up for the mining operation, they should be departing for the asteroid belt within the month. The second _Garm_-class cargo ship is tasked to salvage efforts in the debris belt, with a secondary of running supplies for Orb to their Heliopolis rebuild project. Third and subsequent ships are up in the air at this time."

ZAFT had allocated four docks to produce the variable-mission _Garm_-class ships, two of which Mendel would use for their own purposes, and two of which ZAFT would use, with a production schedule of 3 months per ship (it helped that most of the ships coming out of the dock had a physical dry mass roughly the same as a ZAFT _Laurasia_-class ship). Mendel had determined that one of the two builds in each rotation would be a cargo ship, the other ship would alternate between a combat ship and a 'Tug' ship, the latter needed to move massive and otherwise immobile spaceborne objects.

Of course, with ZAFT planning on dedicating another four docks to the shipbuilding, it would be an excellent benefit to both parties and several other groups that were looking at the Garm as a heavy transport.

"Do we have plans to operate one of the _Garm_ ships for asteroid mining?"

"We do, though not until this next group of ships is out of shakedown and trials," Yzak answered the question from the researcher. "Our existing cargo ships are being used as freighters between the colonies and from L5 to L4 freight runs." He specifically did not mention that the ship assigned to go from Mendel to the PLANTs had two teams of Mobile Suits assigned to it, specifically to prevent problems that would arise from Earth Alliance piracy. Likewise, the Mendel 'Tug' ship that doubled as a freighter for salvage operations was moving with a mercenary Star of aerofighters onboard — it cut down on the amount of salvage that could be carried by 1500 tons, but woe would certainly betide whoever tried pirating that ship.

"In that they are progressing, preparing, that is enough for now. We will force some competition in the matter at a later time; for now, they will provide the resource, as it is they who will profit most in the short term," Chairman Durandal put forward his position on the matter. Few disagreed with him, though most wanted to see more involvement from the ZAFT personnel in the project — and thus more profit from it.

Durandal looked to his intelligence specialists in the room, specifically the ones that covered as robotics researchers. "Mendel's Android project, do they show any movement of late?"

"The best information we can ascertain, sir, suggests that they are working on frame designs that would reduce overall unit mass to something closer to human. They have not produced a new unit beyond the first three built on the _Mjolnr _before the end of the war."

This was an interesting tidbit to Durandal, given that Star Admiral Centara had 'released' Gerald Lightbringer to continue the project at an optimal pace. "And what of the four existing units?"

"One serves as a mechanic, the original is working at a clinic in the Mendel II colony, the only male droid of the series is a teacher in the Mendel colony, and the fourth stayed on with the military as a Mobile Armor pilot. No apparent change there, sir."

"It would appear their program is static until further advances are made," Captain Gladys opined.

"This is a subject that would help us immensely, but we must tread carefully. The Magi have a long history with Artificial Intelligence entities, we do not. I am sure many of you have seen tales of how that can go wrong, just the same as I have." Of course, Durandal's estimates of things that could go wrong were based on the predication that fiction was the best guidestone for the reality of the matter. He fell into the same logic trap that many before him fell into on the subject of western movies and stories in the old United States territory: fiction had to magnify the nastiest parts of history to be of any entertainment value, and artificial intelligence was no different. An AI entity that wanted to take over the world was the subject of faulty programming, not some general malice built into the AI or developed by it at runtime.

Yzak, having seen the value of an AI entity in his stint on the dropship _Sailboat Reborn_ as a negotiator, knew just exactly how to go about this. "Sir, I may have an idea on this subject, though it will be extremely unorthodox."

"Go on," Durandal prompted.

"During the war, there was a certain pilot on the far side of my crosshairs, a certain very naive Coordinator that was duped into piloting for the Earth Alliance, at least until his ship was consigned to death at JOSH-A. Him, and a defector from our ranks who won the Order of the Nebula for finally shooting down the first pilot, are the two level best programmers in the areas of machine control and automation in the Earth Sphere. They work for Orb right now, technically, but I doubt they are restricted from doing contract work for a holding company that may be located in a neutral state such as ZAFT. Just for grin factor, we could also set up a branch in Mendel and Copernicus, see if we could get some more horsepower and make it a collaboration effort."

After he fronted his idea, Yzak looked around the room to take stock of the reactions. He figured he had done a damn good job of selling his idea given the amount of jaws flapping open soundlessly.

It was the whiny researcher that answered first. "Are you serious? Crowdsource a major artificial intelligence project across four different nations?"

"More, actually, depending on the funding availability and drive of the project. Hell, we could set the primary up in Copernicus and make it look neutral enough that we could play some talent in the Earth Alliance or Equatorial." Yzak folded his arms akimbo and shrugged. "Push to shove, I'm not against letting other people do the dirty work when we need the necessary assets somewhere else."

"Yzak has a point," One of the intelligence specialists noted. "And Mendel can become our shining beacon on this note — of how not to do it," he continued savagely.

"Exclusivity," Durandal immediately twigged to that pattern of logic. "Mendel has the only known functional AI units in the Earth Sphere, a veritable treasure-trove of ability that they are not sharing. Certainly such an advantage is creating jealousy somewhere, so we use a crowdsource technique with the goal of meeting or surpassing Mendel's monopoly, and in the end we profit most from it, but we do not reap it all, of course."

"Everyone gets an AI, essentially, but we have the best techniques for profit given we intend to replicate similar androids to Mendel," Yzak concluded the thought. "If we get halfway to where Mendel is with this technique, think about the crew reductions on our ships, in factories, we could force multiply our population by a factor of three."

"More, if we play the chessmen right," Durandal admitted. "Talia, I want you in an oversight position on this task. You will have a roll call of resources within the week. Yzak, begin planning on locations you want to set up crowdsource aggregation nodes. Someone from the intelligence group, plan on making a contract available to Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala to provide high-level support to the task. We won't offer a huge amount of funds, since we want it to appear small and unobtrusive, but there will be a few key players in paid positions for this."

As the meeting personnel broke down into knots to discuss operational applications and initial planning stages, Durandal watched on passively but with an internal smile. Eileen Canaver had tasked him with making sure ZAFT was not subservient to other powers in coming years, decades, and further. He figured he had the way to do that, even if he could not execute his personal whims of genetic perfection and genetic determination.

-x-x-x-

(10 December CE 72, 2200 hours UTC)  
>(Scandinavian Spaceport, Hedemora, Sweden)<p>

The production of small Dropships, specifically the Orb _Kamui_-class Dropship that was a scaled down and stripped-down version of the Magi _Guild II_-class cargo freighters, had changed the way companies thought about moving freight. No longer were companies limited on lift tonnage or magnetic several-hundred-G cat shots from an orbital rail launcher, an abusive process to material and lethal to men. The _Kamui_ gave everyone the lift capability needed to go anywhere on planet and go to the stars with no major headaches or logistical issues. Just feed the ship fuel, make sure you have a competent pilot at the helm, and go for it.

National Logistics Services, LLC, a company based in Scandinavia, had wasted no time buying into the _Kamui_ with a vengeance. More to the point, NLS was also the primary civilian buyer of such ships, and had set up a fabrication facility with LNC Engineering in Scandinavia, immediately off the starport / airport property. So far, six of the small ships had been built in the Scandinavia facilities, two for Orb, two for NLS, and two for the Junk Guild, and over two dozen at the Orb facilities. Small Dropships were all the rage among cargo-hauler groups, and for good reason. Small crew, small price tag, large freight cap; carrying more with less was the holy grail of freight companies, and the _Kamui_ was a large step in that direction compared to rail launchers or freight aircraft.

And, in classic fashion of anything new and spectacular, there were protests and threats. NLS got a double-whammy from two sources, one worse than the next. The 'Greens' came out to throw themselves at the small Dropships because they did not realize that an old interplanetary fusion engine generated hot plasma ionization and helium as its byproducts, hardly a series of caustic or harmful chemicals (unless you were dumb enough to walk or fly through the plasma vented from the engines). Still and all, the environmentalists were not as well equipped or organized as NLS' internal security staff, so their efforts failed to do anything more than get them arrested and score some serious jail time.

The second threat to NLS was a lot less direct and a lot more violent. A blast at the Hedemora Starport north fuel tank farm in weeks past had made a telling indicator that Blue Cosmos was keenly interested in stopping operations at the airport-turned-starport. Thankfully the first attack was amateurish and failed to do more than simply disrupt fuel supply from one of three fuel tank farms on the airport, but even a botched sabotage mission was enough to get the attention of the Starport officials. Mercenary contracts went out to known networks for bid; over a dozen units bid on the mercenary detail, including Junk Guild MS units (given that the Starport was one of several landing points they used, they had a dog in the fight and could rightfully use defensive measures) and including Mendel Mercenary Forces. It was Serpent Tail that won the contract, providing the most firepower for the least cost, though Gai Murakumo subcontracted a Mendel Marine formation in as infantry security at the starport.

Since the contract took effect, nothing major had happened at the starport, but Gai expected that would not last. Blue Cosmos was not known for 'one-and-done' operations, they made a name for themselves for hitting their targets hard enough and repeatedly enough to get the job done.

"This is where the most damage can happen with the least amount of manpower," and Gai tapped on the map of the facility over the number two fuel farm. "A couple thermite grenades could turn this entire area into a raging inferno, and would close the starport for weeks."

"Aye," the Mercenary Marine nodded her understanding. "I have a point of troops covering each fuel farm; a blast or fire at any of them could be catastrophic. The other two are at the hangars and the luggage facility, the other two weakest facilities in terms of manpower and defensibility."

"I need men in the terminal, Star Captain. If Blue Cosmos rushes the lobbies, it will be messy before anyone can respond."

"Two options, then," the Star Captain noted. "Call in another Star or so of forces, or pull coverage from somewhere else."

"Expensive," Gai noted. Armored Marines, operating as mercenaries, were not cheap to hire out for anything. On the other hand, practically nobody had the capability necessary to go toe-to-toe with them, which made the Marines nearly worth their weight in gold in combat operations.

"Or, can we afford to lose one of the fuel farms and retain flight operations?"

"Fuel Farm three could go off and the northern segment of the starport would still be usable. Do we want to retain protection in the hangars?" Gai mused, considering shifting two teams to provide ample coverage instead of one.

"If we don't, Gai, an attack there could put airlines out of business, which would wreck NLS and their business model, which thereafter puts us out of business."

"True," Gai admitted. "So we have to defend the cargo hangars and the fuel farms. That leaves —"

"Gai Murakumo, call from Elijah," the senior tower operator broke in, waving one of the radio phones at him.

"Gai, go," Murakumo said tersely.

"Sir, we have incoming. Hostile APCs on the move on the access road north of the left runway. They shot up one of the guard posts but bypassed it for some reason."

"Feint?" Gai asked mostly to himself, though since nobody was privy to the rest of the conversation it did not make sense in context. "Elijah, which way were they moving?"

"Toward the east, sir, and still are — scratch that, they busted through the fence just north of the lights for the right runway."

Gai pointed to the map. "Marine, if APCs broke in here, where would they be targeting?" Gai asked the expert in the room on infantry tactics.

"The nav-aids for the 50-Left runway would be a start, or a good target of opportunity," she opined as an opening position. "Hit those and you lose the ability to land on 50 Left if you are coming in from the north. The next logical location would be run down the taxiways to the cargo terminal in between 50-Left and 50-Right, NLS facilities. We have no security there."

"Elijah, move to and intercept. I will be on the field in five minutes. This may be a real assault."

"Got it, Gai. Moving now." Elijah dialed out of the radio frequency, which disconnected the tower from his machine.

"It is real, quiaff?" the Marine asked.

"It is. Mount up the baggage deck team on my Gundam, you are supposed to be able to do mechanized ops like that, right?" Gai asked as he pelted down the stairs.

"I read you," the Marine responded. Her next was into a high-power radio system for the infantry. "Marines, Command, we have an active threat on the airbase. Baggage team is to report to Blue Frame for mechanized lift to threat zone. All sections to full alert and acknowledge." After she released the talk button, the five teams chimed in with their readiness and expected time to full deploy.

Gai Murakumo parted ways with the Marine Star Captain as she turned into the security control center for the airport, while he moved to his machine. It was no challenge for him to practically sprint up the rope ladder and into his cockpit, given that this was not the time to be dawdling. A few seconds after it closed up and began powering up, he heard the ground crews disconnect the power cable from his machine. "This is Blue Frame reporting active. Marines, what is your status?"

"Baggage team is on approach run, ETA 1-5 seconds. We are equipped for mixed combat, sir," the Point Commander of Echo Point reported.

"Make it fast, we have tangos on the airbase already," Gai ordered. "Elijah, Gai, status report," he ordered after a quick change of frequencies.

"I got two of the five APCs outside, but the others entered the cargo terminal. I'm out of options there, but we've got worse problems now: Strike Dagger Mobile Suits are coming in from the northwest, sir, painted black with crimson highlights."

"Black Hand, someone reconstituted that formation after it was wiped out on the Gigafloat," Gai bemoaned. "Begin drawing them down the left runway, try to keep them away from the passenger facilities and fuel tanks on the east side of the starport."

"I'm on it, sir," Elijah answered.

Before Gai could ask, he heard the first of five impacts on the outside of his machine as the Marines mounted up. His Gundam had not been designed nor retrofitted for Mechanized Battle Armor / Mechanized Armored Infantry purposes, but desperate times called for desperate measures — and the Marines were flexible about such things.

To prove Gai's thinking: "Semper Gumby, sir, always flexible. Five on board and ready to roll," the Point Commander reported.

"Marines, report is three APCs have entered the cargo terminal. You will enter and clear, minimize collateral damage, and prevent demolition of the facility by any means necessary."

"Aff, sir," the Point Commander answered readily. Given that Serpent Tail was subcontracting the Marines, they took their orders from him.

"Serpent One, Security Central, do you read?" the Marine Star Commander asked on the security band. Given she was out of armor when the engagement started, she would not likely be able to get to her armor and mount up before the shooting was done. And, all things considered, Gai preferred her in the security center for overwatch, she could use the camera networks to read intentions and track movements.

"Serpent One reads five by five. Send traffic," Gai requested.

"Serpent One, confirmed three APCs inside lower floor of cargo terminal, total 20 men inside on a hunter-killer assignment and planting demo charges. Recommend drop Marine Point at southeast corner for infil contested building. Mobile Suits are moving down 50-Right at this time, once drop is completed move due east to engage."

"Serpent one confirms recommendations," Gai answered immediately to the Marine Star Commander. "Marines, hold on, we're going for a ride." The Blue Frame started off at a decent jog, which ramped up to a running pace, then Gai hammered his jsets to perform a long jump from the passenger terminal toward the cargo terminal and sort facilities. With one long, low jump, he cleared the east-west runway and was two-thirds the distance to the destination terminal in less than a minute travel.

"Whoo yeah! You rock, Serpent!" one of the Marines shouted after the landing.

"We'll be there in a minute. How long does it take you to get off the machine?" Gai asked.

"Roughly three seconds, sir," the Point Commander answered directly. It was not 40 seconds before he was allowed to demonstrate, beginning with a single order. "Point, combat drop!"

Gai could feel the impacts of the five troopers as they landed around the legs of his machine. With that done, he was now freed to engage the Black Hand mobile suits while the Marines entered and cleared. On trained reactions, he turned the Blue Frame left smartly and began to step off, before another impact caught his attention, this one of metal on metal. "Wha —"

"Balls! Balls, I say! That HURT!" one of the Marines half-shouted on the comm channel. "Did you have to kick me, sir?"

"Sorry about that, Marine. Can you continue?" Gai asked in what he hoped was a calm and professional fashion, trying to override the embarrassment of having kicked one of the Marines in the ass with his Gundam's massive foot.

"Yea, so long as I do not need to run, that is," she answered timidly. "Go on, I'll manage, sir."

"Serpent One, moving out," Gai noted in response. Once his finger was off the radio switch, he sighed. _I'll have to think up some way to make amends, it's not good form to be kicking my subcontractors in the middle of a crisis situation_, he thought sheepishly. "Elijah, what's your status?"

"Not good, sir," his wingman answered with clear strain to voice. "I've dropped one and damaged another, but I'm out of bazooka ammo and I've taken a lot of damage myself. Where are you, sir?"

"South side of the cargo terminal. Keep drawing them my way, I'll pick them off as they approach."

"Yes, sir!"

In the brief ten seconds that Gai had taken for his approach march to the ambush point, Elijah had cleared the south facing of the cargo terminal and was still using his 76mm machine gun to fend them off, but one GINN against six Strike Daggers was no contest at the end. Gai watched as his comrade's machine took a final crippling strike to the chest, a beam rifle hit that caused the machine to drop backwards and cease moving. Wisely, Elijah did not pop his hatch to try to bail out; the Black Hand mercenary unit were not exactly famous for being 'nice' to other mercenaries or regulars, as had been demonstrated in some of their campaigns in Southeast Asia.

Unfortunately for the Black Hand, their victory came at the price of two total downed machines in fighting against Elijah, and one severely damaged of the four remaining. For Gai, it was an easy target profile to the four remaining; they were all within 500 meters of the southwest corner of the cargo terminal, and all were standing in the middle of an airport runway that afforded them nowhere to hide or take cover.

A four-brace of Pardus missiles was the opening volley from the Blue Frame, with two hits on the same MS and two misses, there was no hope for the pilot caught unawares. Before any of the surviving machines could react, Murakumo followed up with two beam rifle shots to the remaining undamaged Strike Daggers; one hit was catastrophic, in that it cooked off a fuel bunker in the MS and blew the severely damaged machine to the ground. The other machine was struck peripherally, and remained in the fight despite the blast that sent it skidding north down the runway.

Before the slightly-damaged machine could recover, Gai was upon him with armor knives; a pair of stabs to critical equipment in the chest rendered this last machine harmless. "Tower, Serpent One reporting all invading Mobile Suits are downed. Infantry, what is your status?"

"Serpent One, Sniper Three, negative clear, one enemy MS is active at the blast — " The Armor Sniper's warning was a bare moment too late to save the day. The Blue Frame took a hit to the back of the left leg from a beam rifle, causing the structure within to shear and fail catastrophically. It took a second before the result was evident, but the conflicting forces on that leg caused it to crumple under the Blue Frame as it fell to the ground. "Sights are hot! Taking the shot!"

Gai was dazed from the impact inside his cockpit, so did not see the second cookoff blast as the Armor Sniper struck the rear fuel bunker inside the still-active MS and detonated it, though his was a deliberate shot at a known engineering flaw in the Strike Dagger units. From two kilometers away, the Armor Sniper ended the mobile portion of the battle for Serpent Tail and prevented further damage to the airport or personnel.

"Serpent Lead, are you all right?" the Marine Point Commander inside the cargo terminal requested.

"I'll live. What is going on in the terminal?" Gai asked groggily.

"We are reducing the last of the enemy infantry, Lead. We can confirmed the presence of demolition charges, we need some EOD personnel to remove them. None of we Marines are rated for scrapping out demo, sir."

"Serpent One, Security Central, I have informed the Scandinavian military, they have an ETA of 70 minutes for EOD personnel on site."

"Very well. Marines, finish clearing the rest of the BC Infantry and clear out of the terminal. We'll wait for the EOD teams to clear the facility. What options do we have for Mobile Suit recovery?" Gai asked with resignation. He'd have to look into overhaul for the machines, given the amount of damage they took was well beyond the level of simple field repairs.

-x-x-x-

(13 December CE 72, 0955 hours UTC)  
>(Mendel Colony, Handel Manufacturing Corporation)<p>

"Guys, guys, we've got incoming!" the secretary half-shouted in a combination of excitement and dread.

"Oh, wow, that would be the Star Admiral," the receptionist noted. "Track down the boss, quick. He has some high-level horsepower about to walk in the front door," he told the secretary.

"On it," she replied before she bent to the phone.

The Star Admiral's subordinate had the door open before the Secretary could even finish dialing the phone. Nobody in the office area could recognize the guy with the neon green hair, but few passed it off to him being Magi. For all that they could be a wild bunch and had the same capabilities for genetic engineering, unusual hair colors were (somewhat) rare amongst the natives of another dimension.

"Star Admiral Centara and one to speak to Mr. Graves," Centara announced himself rather needlessly at the front desk.

"Yes, sir, the boss should be here shortly. May I get you some refreshments, sir?"

"Coffee, if you have it, two sugars only," the Star Admiral answered.

"Pilot?" the receptionist asked, given the subordinate had on a set of insignia for Mobile Suit pilot.

"I'm good," the pilot answered immediately. The pilot shifted enough that he could read the nametag 'Andras' off his BDU.

"Mister Graves is on the way, Star Admiral. He'll be here momentarily. Allow me to see you to the conference room."

"Roger that," and the two Mendel military officers followed the secretary into the conference room, where they were seated in anticipation of the arrival of the CEO. It was a few seconds before the secretary returned, and no person in the room could miss the flush in her face.

"That good up close?" the new purchasing coordinator queried. She didn't have Flay Allster's panache for manhandling surly suppliers, but she was learning.

"Damn hot in close, both of them. I wouldn't mind the Star Admiral for long-term, but that pilot has got to be hot stuff."

"Mendel Armed Forces, voted hottest military top to bottom by the residents of the colony," the receptionist (the only man in the room) said with mock gravity.

"Damn skippy," the secretary confirmed before she resumed her seat.

-x-

"I'm willing to guess that secretary would have asked you out if she passed you on the street."

"Eh, not my type, regardless of how hot she is," Shani answered the Star Admiral's implicit challenge.

"I dunno, I've always found exec staff to be rather adventurous," Wayne hedged before he took a sip of his coffee.

"I know, I know, sir. A little ass can be found anywhere, but good ass is so hard to come by nowadays." When the Star Admiral made a gagging-sputtering sound, Shani's head whipped around and centered on him. "You all right, sir?"

Wayne spent several seconds hacking up coffee he had inhaled with the pilot's comment. "I'll live, Shani, I'll live," Wayne assured him. "A lot easier to drink coffee than it is to inhale it, I can confirm."

"Really," Shani trailed off.

Both officer and pilot were brought to focus when the door came open very abruptly. "Sorry I'm late, seeing to a mechanical issue down on the floor, Star Admiral."

"I know the routine quite well, Dale," Wayne answered to the CEO of the company. "This is Shani Andras, one of the pilots from the _Dominion_."

"One of the Extended?" Dale asked as he offered a hand for a shake.

"I was, until the boss cleaned me up," Shani replied diffidently.

After the three were seated, the CEO asked the inevitable question. "So, what brings 'the boss' and a Gundam pilot to Handel today?"

"By our best numbers, we're about six months away from the next scrap. Kids down below are gettin' itchy for some payback, and it is going to boil over sooner rather than later."

"Sounds about like my present guess, sir," Dale Graves twitched his mustache. "I was thinking eight to nine, but six is not outside the bounds of that guess. What does the Empire need from Handel?"

"Munitions, and a lot of them," Wayne answered. "You're already producing weapons and battle armor, and you were making noise about starting up an ammunition plant in the 2 colony, so I am here to request you move up your timeline and can offer you assistance in making it happen."

Dale was silent, lips drawn tight, and nodding contemplatively. It lasted for about ten seconds before he said anything. "I can have a factory turned in a month. I already have the heavy equipment on order through a Scandinavian company, but I need transport."

"How soon?" Wayne asked.

"Two weeks, no sooner. I'll also need manpower to get the gear from the Dropship to the factory site, since Mendel II is thin on intra-colony heavy lift." Dale was looking over some notes on a note-puter that he had bought off one of the _Mjolnir's_ engine mechanics.

"I can have a brace of Mobile Suits assigned to the detail. In fact, one of them is sitting next to me."

"Yes, sir," Shani answered immediately.

"And I'll need a couple good mechanics to do assembly and debugging once the equipment is in place."

"Also pullable from the _Dominion_, so no problem there," Centara noted. "Only stipulation is a slightly reduced rate on the ammo until manpower costs are covered. Not enough to cut you below profit, but a reduction."

"I'll fly on that," Graves answered immediately. "At the end of the day, it's my ass on the hook just the same as you guys. I'll build the bullets, you use 'em on the bastards. Win-win as far as I'm concerned."

"Very well. As soon as you have the equipment ready for pickup, the _Dominion_ will sortie to collect and transport to Mendel II, where _Dominion_ personnel will assist in transport, assembly, and initial process. The bona-fide is reduced ammo cost until manpower is covered. Sound good?" Wayne asked for clarification.

"I'm in. Where do I sign?" Graves asked bluntly. No terrorist moron was going to be stupid enough to attack an _Archangel_-class ship as it transported industrial gear to the colony, so the whole works was receiving a major kick in the pants as 'motivation'. The shareholders would definitely get a warm and fuzzy feeling from this venture, given the potential for profit was massive based solely on how fast Mendel chewed through ammo just for training purposes.

"Sign here," Wayne handed the CEO another note-puter. With a stroke of the pen, Mendel was on its way to a more solidified position in military affairs.

"Damn good," Dale smiled after he signed. "So, gentlemen, would you like to see the Battle Armor sets coming off our production line here?"

"I think I'd like that quite a bit," Wayne said immediately. Shani simply nodded an affirmative.

-x-x-x-

(4 June 2SL-12, 0900 hours)  
>(<em>Phalanx<em>-class Warship _Golden Phoenix_)  
>(3 days after the attack on the <em>Mjolnir<em>)

"At least we aren't stuck in limbo any more," Captain Edward Hallas groused.

"Point," Star Admiral Minako Sahalin admitted evenly. "Still, the orders are nebulous, and so is our fate. 'Move to Bensinger, Dimension X-1021-334878720054593 to escort flotilla' isn't exactly replete with purpose or outcome. What happens to the ship? What happens to the Admiralty?"

"No telling, boss lady," Century Commander Benjamin Gates commented. "I also don't like the bloody rush job they've got going on. We're retaining our forces in the ship, but our escorts have been yanked, our dropship complement has been removed and gated out, what the hell next?"

"Preaching a game to the choir, amigo," the Star Admiral admitted.

"And you just lost the game," Captain Hallis replied.

"Geh," Minako deflated, having lost the competition for the day. In a complete twist of purpose-driven perversion, The Game operated on the ship as a semi-competition among the crew as to who could report the fewest losses per day; it paid to think hard about doing your duty, as you were less likely to realize something about The Game and thus lose it. Such extreme psychological measures were required of a depleted, disabused, and understaffed crew on a ship sucking hind tit from the quartermaster corps.

"Conn, Sensors, Empress Atrebas has docked in bay 3-Sierra-02."

"Oh, yeah, that," Minako groused in response to the overarching question of 'what next'. The Empress had specifically requested no ship-wide meeting or anything of that nature, simply because of the time frame required for the operation. Rini Atrebas had simply forwarded a warning that the ship would be going into harm's way and would not be coming back, and that any crew who wished to remain on the ship needed to be apprised of the fact that they would not be leaving their destination dimension and would not have any contact with the primary Magi empire thereafter. It was a stark showing of faith in the Empress - the Chibi-Empress as she was called by many - that few left the ship under threat of not coming back. "As of right now, I am putting out a ship-wide moratorium on tempting fate. If even a quarter of a percent of what I am imagining actually happens on this tour, this is gonna suck."

"It can always be wors...my bad," Captain Hallis sighed and reached into his pocket to pull out a five-note C-bill. "You just quashed tempting fate, and here I go pushing it already."

"Indeed," the Century Commander commented with a smile as the Captain paid up for his transgression.

"Back on job here, people," Minako ordered while pocketing the five-note. "Our main problem is going to be logistics. The B-Y-B (x) can't support a flotilla, and with only five ships going plus us, I don't see this ending well from a supply standpoint."

"Okay, who's managing this one?" the Century Commander asked in exasperation.

"You want the official word or the scuttlebutt?" Captain Hallis asked.

"Both," CC Gates requested.

"Officially, Division Commander Caecilius. Unofficially, Empress Atrebas," the Captain replied.

"In reality, Executor Hotaru Tomoe," a fourth voice commented from just outside the command circle in the middle of the bridge. All three knew who said so by way of her voice; unlike her grandfather, Rini Atrebas sounded very distinctive and really couldn't hide among the common soldiers. The pink hair and stunning looks didn't help her stealth woes a bit, either. "Spare the formalities, Star Admiral, Captain, Century Commander. We're about to jump into a shitstorm and you need to know what is happening."

"Nice, always good to know what we're about to jump into," the Century Commander replied steadily.

"If you have no complaints, I'll begin the thousand-kilometer overview of this operation," Empress Rini said.

"A seat, milady?" Century Commander Gates offered his inside the command platform.

Rini took up the offered seat, then sighed mightily. "This is one of those really weird exercises that can never be spoken of, but must happen even so," the Empress began. "We are about to jump across the railroad tracks to the infamous 'other side' with the express purpose of throwing a very big monkey wrench into the machine that is building Ragnarok. With me so far?"

"Sort of, milady Atrebas," the Century Commander replied. "Where is the 'other side' we're going?"

"We go to an offset dimension, a location that cannot normally be reached by way of the standard jump equipment. We are going to a land with a race war; a war with no bounds and less purpose in the grand schema of things." The grimaces on the faces of the three subordinate officers was answer enough. "Mostly, we go to where the _Mjolnir_ has landed, for the purpose of building on what they have begun."

"Uh, what, milady?" Century Commander Gates asked, stunned that the Magi were now in the business of interfering with outside conflicts that did not directly threaten Magi interests.

"Where we go, this ship will not be returning from," Star Admiral Sahalin replied for the Empress. "If we are to go, and to stay, and shall never again be in contact with the Empire, why do we do so?" Her rather direct question was aimed at the somewhat smaller Empress and showed no yield of conduct, almost to the point of indirect insubordination in her demeanor.

And everyone on the bridge knew the Empress had just been called out in an elliptical fashion. The silence of the room was punctuated only by the beeping of some of the sensor consoles tracking asteroids and comets in the area. Rini Atrebas opened her mouth to answer, closed it after a second, then sighed. "I won't bullshit you, Star Admiral," Rini said after a few moments. Unlike her mother (Empress Serena Serenity) and grandmother (Queen Sora Serenity), Rini was more soldier than she was statesman, and was not unknown to talk like a soldier when in the presence of soldiers. "You deserve a straight answer on this issue, and it is the least I can give."

"We're going to do something the other Star Empires would object to," Captain Hallis replied.

"Far more than just that, Captain," Rini replied deadpan. "We are going to write a new history, one parallel to the existence of the Star League and the Star Empires, for the express purpose of evening the odds at Ragnarok."

"But what of—" Benjamin Gates began, but was interrupted by a raised hand.

"When it comes down to it, Century Commander, when it truly comes down to the live-or-die decision at the end, fuck the Star League and their high-minded principles," Rini said, referring to the Star League tenet that 'history shall not be altered for profit or woe of any party'. "It's all well and good that my grandmother has stopped the constant infighting between the six Star Empires, but in so doing the Star League has crippled any hope of surviving Ragnarok. Why do you think that Hess and Tomoe spend so much time under reprimand for their actions in the field?"

"Too busy trying to save Existence to play by the rulebook," the Star Admiral replied to the somewhat rhetorical question from the Empress. "In fact, has not even your grandmother been under censure of late for such actions?"

"The Executors see the writing on the wall, but cannot convince the legislature to take action," CC Gates said. "And now we pay in advance or play our chances later."

"Close, Century Commander. We pay our dues now, or just as appropriately far into the past and far from the prying eyes and squeamish moral tone of the Star League, or everything we have done will be erased from Existence a few months from now."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Chapter Afterword<strong>:

It has been too long since I've done any major writing. The easiest and most accurate explanation of a reason is that my will to write simply died off sometime in the middle of last year. This chapter has sat incomplete for roughly 6 months before I regained any desire to continue writing. I will admit, it is a damn good feeling to be back to work on this. I have had a multitude of ideas haunting my daydreams and keeping me awake at night, playing and replaying scenarios in my mind, but without the will to write I was doing nothing more than grinding gears and frustrating myself.

I hope the this first effort back into the saddle is worthy to any waiting you have done.

On the meat of this chapter, you're not seeing any major moves from the players, just preparation and low-level workloads in preparation for major campaigns to come. We have not yet reached the timeframe of Destiny, but mind that you are not far off from those events; the first major campaign will be beginning in the next chapter or two. Certain major players of the Destiny timeline will make their first grand showing specifically in the next round. This is where the affairs of world begin to heat up.

Once again, you get a good look at the dice swinging back and forth to their own whims. The skirmish in Hedemora, Sweden, is a classic example. The Black Hand unit gets Elijah, Gai toasts off the enemy MS, one of the units manages to back-shoot Gai. Someone once questioned if my dice are loaded; I think this is ample evidence they most certainly are not.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this chapter covers almost 3 months of time span. The compressing of time specifically ends in the next chapter, as the intrinsic time frames shift down from a matter of months to a matter days between chapters. this is necessary to keep pace with the rapidly changing political environment to come; anyone who watched Destiny with an eye towards understanding the time frame involved could readily understand that the bulk of the action in this story took place in the space of a few months. There were some major gaps, and just as in the original SEED time was not completely enumerated, you would have to be an analyst to properly understand the scale of time involved. Thankfully, I have a personal enjoyment of doing such detail work, and such details worked to my advantage.

Upon this chapter, the only other notification I need to make is one of process. I have once again resurrected the use of my voice recognition software, and just as every time prior that I used it, there will be some inaccuracy. Anybody that spots an error or nonsensical phrasing is requested to report this to me at first available so that I may correct and submit a revised chapter. better to Nell and correct, then to find such errors a year or two after I posted the chapter.

With this first effort completed, I intend to turn my hands to Archangel's Amazing Adventures once more. That chapter died roughly a third in, and has haunted me something fierce for over a year now.

NEXT UP: The young are called to war once more, but they made a mistake in underestimating their elders...

* * *

><p><strong>Review Replies<strong>: Over the time span of this chapter, I have received 7 reviews and innumerable PMs pertaining to it. Here are the review replies, and much thanks to everyone who has put continuous pressure on me to keep writing. Sometimes, the pilot light needs a little napalm and a jumpstart to reignite :)

Takeshi Yamato: Another day, more preparations. Be afraid, amigo. Be very afraid.

The Underground Railroad may be a bit cut off due to operational constraints, but that manpower is not going to go to waste.

Sutherland and Natarle may get that chance. The Dice are the final arbiter there, and you got a good look at that manner of cruelty in this chapter.

Any OCs you want to prep for coming chapters, feel free to. Remember, if they are good enough to warrant a place in the eugenics program, you may have a whole bloodline of them to contend with down the road :-) (BTW, you are right about Magi genetic technology on that note. It can be done.)

Looking forward to your next round of input!

Deathzealot: Thanks for the review, amigo. I enjoy breaking new ground in subject matter not normally covered, even in the fandom. On the other hand, there is a lot of ground that still needs to be rehashed.

Don't worry about the side story if it has died off. Crap happens and all that.

You are correct, my next should be AAA. Talk about a ghost that is haunting the hell out of me...

Knightowl: To avoid giving anything away, I'm not going to do a point-for-point analysis on what you put down. Let's just say, you came real close to a few subjects I don't normally discuss for a reason...

Sieben Nightwing: Things have improved quite a bit since you reviewed, but not to the degree that I wanted. Still and all, I need to get back to writing. It is great stress relief :)

Biggie1447: It won't be this chapter you get some quick-and-dirty run down on the head honchos of the Empire, but you will in coming chapters. I had to expatriate a demon for this chapter, the last bit of the Star League run-down, and man was it a bear to get that all in one place from scattered notes!

Dark Phoenix Jade: I use MAHQ dot Net for the base configurations (Stock images) of the units. As to my complete custom units, such as warship designs and such, there are no pictures, only design specifications written for Battletech. I have little to no drawing skill, all my artistic ability is in writing.

You probably sense an unholy beat-down coming, because, well, there is some writing on that wall over there...

RaXephon: Credit where credit is due. Thank you for pointing out this logic faux pas of mine.

* * *

><p><strong>The Gripe Sheet<strong>:

One outstanding gripe from a new reader, who was a bit taken aback by my chapter descriptions in place of the story description. This has been corrected. Thanks to RahXephon for the error trapping on this one!

On the prose of my work, no major errors. Much thanks to my betas **Necroblade**, **Takeshi Yamato**, and the new guy **Malk**

* * *

><p><strong>Footnotes<strong>:

(1): **Pods** is referring to Weapons Pods, the term for the modular weapons systems and containers used in Omnimechs to allow them to change arsenal on the fly.

(2): **H**eavy **V**ehicle **D**river **L**icense, analogous to the CDL (**C**ommercial **D**river **L**icense) around America.

(3): The spell in question is the spell **X-Zone** from Final Fantasy 6. Yes, the Magi draw spellcraft from the entire Final Fantasy series as well as others.

(4): **A**uxiliary **P**ower **U**nit, an engine separate of an engine, if you will. The APU systems provide electrical power to the rest of the craft so that a generator does not have to be directly attached to the engine and thus does not drag down performance on the main engines. Commonly seen in aircraft applications.

* * *

><p><strong>EXTENDED NOTES SECTION<strong>

STAR LEAGUE NOTES, SECTION 3: EXECUTORS

"A single man can rewrite history; be wary the tales of the old Mages, the Gods of yore, even common men and soldiers have done so. Our purpose is to do the same thing, only on a more massive scale. We are the Executors, and you who have joined our rank shall learn to shake worlds, nations just the same. You will rewrite the future, but always for a single purpose: maintenance of honor and life."

Whereas the Star League is mostly a political alliance and meeting house for the various Empires and affiliated lesser entities, the Executors are considered both the military elite of the Star League and a separate entity altogether. An organization of hand-picked and silently-scouted personnel, trained to an extent that is considered wholly impractical even for the most elite of the Star Empires, and equipped with the finest equipment that can be purchased or manufactured by wizards, the men and women of the Executors are the epitome of one-man army, capable of insane feats of battle skill even by the standards of interdimensional warfare.

**PURPOSE**:  
>"Maintenance of Honor and Life, never less."<p>

Simply stated, the Executors were founded as a continuation — and radical expansion — of the original assignment given to Eric Atrebas by the Norse Gods. As Eric was asked to find a way to ensure something survived the war Ragnarok, so is the duty of every Executor commissioned into the service. The present operational method of this purpose is simple: by preventing mass casualty, by maintaining life and honor, Existence will be best possibly prepared for the coming of the final war and if done correctly can actually out-manpower the throngs of enemies to come in that last battle. Every Executor operates for this one duty above all else, and no denizen of the Star League territories would fault them for it.

The maintenance of life is the first and foremost purpose of the Executors, and as it happens also the greatest source of angst for their ranks. By its nature, power tends to be destructive to life and is often used at cross purpose to honorable conduct, so Executors tend to get into conflict with the powerful beings throughout Existence as a matter of course. This may simply be a matter of political power, or it may be military power, though a more disturbing trend of late has been a resurgence of so-called 'divine beings' even after the clear historical lesson of the First Executor's dethroning (and annihilation of certain) of the Gods of Olympus. Such conflict generally causes a spate of casualties in its brief span, but is widely considered to be a precursor and necessary evil to later gains. At no time will an Executor oppose a power play whereby that opposition would cause more casualties than it would prevent by stopping the power, as this is considered a gross breach of conduct. In those rare circumstances, senior personnel are usually called in to find an alternative correction.

The other primary duty of an Executor is the maintenance of honor. Separate and distinct from the maintenance of life, though sometimes operating with the same goals, these tasks focus more on corrections of malicious conduct than they focus on protecting denizens of a given area. Again, this is a sticking point for the Executors, as it does rarely bring them into conflict with the 'Big Six' Star Empires and more frequently with smaller Empires and states. When the affairs of politics and statecraft are boiled down to their root causes, it is almost always possible to make a determination as to who is in the honorable or moral position, and an Executor is tasked to find that root cause to act accordingly. Additionally, this also includes personal conduct as well as statecraft, in that it is considered an affair of honor for an Executor to defend against persecution and malice outside the bounds of national, planetary, or empirical levels. On rare occasion this does lead to a disconnect between Executors and the Star League, or between various states or Empires, though never has such interference caused a war of its own right.

A mildly frequent secondary duty of the Executors is to act as arbiters between private, public, or national entities where other means of settling disputes are impractical or have already failed. On this unique tasking, an Executor is considered the ultimate arbiter and are almost always considered a paragon of fairness in such fashion. By way of their second primary tenet, the quest of honor, an Executor will cut right to the heart of the matter and from there shall negotiate in good faith of the maintenance of honor. It is frequent that territory disputes between Empires to be settled by an Executor, chiefly because they can get down to brass tacks and override the emotion of such arguments. This above all else has created the most perception schism for the Executors, as what fits the definition of honor is usually not what neighboring systems would consider fair and specifically conflicts with the press agencies of the various Empires. Arbitration decisions have been frequently called into question, though only a bare dozen have been overturned by higher authorities in the 11,000-year-plus history of the Executors.

Executors, much like any other rational worker in Existence, also operate under the expectation that the phrase 'other duties as requested' is a real and viable threat from their command structure. This requirement has created a lot of bizarre situations whereby a seasoned Executor has been called on to do extremely unusual tasks — an old joke among the second-generation Executors is that they will eventually be asked to babysit dragon eggs at some time in their career, just as one example. One of the frequent but unspoken tasks in this listing is transport of tour groups of school children from their home to the Lunar Palace and back home, given the exigencies of teleport travel on Luna Zero or the prohibitive availability of conventional travel means. In this, there will be other duties that are ordered, and an Executor is expected to see to the tasks with the same flair and skill as any other.

**POLITICAL DIMENSION**:  
>"The leash that never was, tied to a collar of many colors, spiked with blades of variable length. Be wary this dog of war."<p>

An Executor exists in a duality of operating for the Star League, acting as its arbiters of justice and fairness, but this is the minority of their duty; their primary functions have little to nothing to do with the areas controlled by the Star League. This makes the ranks of the Executors both respected officials and (to an extent) renegades, but always respected by the Empires and denizens throughout known Existence. Ironically, they have little necessity of operating inside the borders of the Star League, as by definition this territory is already secured and maintained properly, allowing for flourishing population and advancing society with little needed interference. It is territory that is still considered 'unaligned' where an Executor does most of their dirty work, but almost never is the problem outside the capabilities of the men and women who go forth to clean it up.

They are technically bound by the will of the Star League, but their command structure does not include the legislature of the Star League; only the reigning Queen has authority among the Executors, and that limited by her own rank in that organization. In reality, most Executors will scoff at the nonsensical or whimsical rulings of the legislature, and the Queen wields only so much authority as she has in respect from the ranks of the Executors. For several milennia, even the Queen was considered a non-entity in the affairs of the Executors, until that position was cleaned up for good. (For the incidents around that cleanup, see Multimage Chronicles, Set 8, when written).

To the denizens of known space, the name Executor is equal parts reverence and dread, representative of the prestige and power of the position. Executors are looked up to as the ultimate of role model, men and women of the highest honor and responsibility, with the personal power to do the toughest tasks given to them. Though the reality is often more mundane than would seem possible, the exploits of the Executors is itself almost mythical in proportion and often inflated by the media at large.

**TRAINING AND EQUIPMENT**:  
>"Each Executor is, in practice, an island; we often work together, but we must be capable to our tasks individually."<p>

Simply stated, one does not gain the respect of the Star Empires overnight. Governments comprised of millions of star systems, armies comprised of billions of soldiers, élite warriors and wizards with the power to depopulate whole planets, these are not entities that are particularly impressed by a mere political action. Everybody involved knew that any such action or position would have to be held by the best of the best. In this, the victors of the first Star Empire Wars would provide the benchmark necessary to establish a force capable of advancing the peace and goals of the Star League.

After the minor fracas that brought to prominence the actions of Executor Sephiroth, it was determined by the existing Executors that any expansion of the ranks were would require massive amounts of training, conditioning, and preparation for the incoming individuals to be of any hope in executing their duties. As the involved parties in the first incident had shown little to no fear of consequences that would be brought by the primary Star League forces and legislature, but had shown readily crippling fear of the Executor to the point of almost instantaneous completion of the negotiations, the psychological value of facing one of the best throughout Existence was not overlooked.

When the first recruits were drawn up, the First Executor decreed that the initial training for these men and women would need no less than 200 years in a combination of classroom, field, and operational training. Every person recruited was informed of this decision and also informed that their training would be just as hard, if not harder than, their operational expectations. No recruit decided to drop out due to this revelation, though no member of this first class properly estimated the difficulty of their coming trials and training. Of the 20 initial recruits, only one completed the training and was inducted into the ranks of the Executors. So it would continue with each successive and progressively larger class of recruits; a study conducted after 5000 years of recruiting and training would determine that the mean success rate of persons inducted into the training program was technically less than one percent. this was by design of the First Executor, as he knew the requirements of duty were far in excess of anything that would be called upon as a normal citizen or military member of original Star Empires.

Training would be the critical foundation of the new group, and ultimately would be the primary factor that determined the effect these individual soldiers would have, but it would be the equipment that truly set them apart from the denizens of the Star Empires. Every Executor would carry some form of offensive and defensive magical device of extremely high power, giving these lone wolves unparalleled resistance to any opposition they may face. This massive advantage was further married to the best equipment available from the major Star Empires, be it weapon or support equipment, allowing for force multiplication and mission variability in such combinations that were likely unheard-of even amongst the most wild-eyed of fiction authors. It's not unheard to have an Executor armed with ballistic rifles, energy rifles, enchanted swords, and an enchanted set of armor that massively increases their resistance to damage, just as a basic combat platform.

All this training is married to a covenant among the Executors. As the Will Transcendent has effective control over the reincarnation of all beings in his realm (and that includes the Executors), the ultimate job requirement / perk is that an Executor slain by any means shall not be reincarnated at a loss to the Star League. Ergo, in a fashion no Executor is invincible or immune to death, but no deceased Executor will cease to be. Should the unthinkable happen, an Executor would be reincarnated somewhere out of the realm of hazard, where they can rebuild themselves, recover from the trauma of their prior loss, take a quick vacation for good effect (see below for more thorough explanation), and possibly prepare new equipment or enhance their existing equipment. Once readied to resume the battlefield, an Executor is welcomed back into active service with open arms. If an Executor grows wearied of his or her duties, he or she may request a disillusionment of this covenant and will no longer be bound by his or her duty to the Star League (This is extremely rare; over the 12,000-year history of the Executors, only nine have pulled their compact and taken a permanent out.).

**COMMAND STRUCTURE**:  
>"Never forget, every action we take reflects upon our superiors; at all times, we must answer to them, just as they expect us to be independent and thoughtful."<p>

Though wielding of immense power and influence, the command and ranking structure of the Executors is extremely simplistic. It is often believed that this simplicity came up being born from a soured experience among the command staff with otherwise byzantine organizational units; in reality, it is not necessary among their rank to have a large and ornate ranking system.

The highest command rank among the Executors is the position of Will Transcendent. Initially held by a man named Doran Beilan at the beginning of the history of the Star Empires, this position was eventually traded off to a certain very influential Executor by the name of Eric Atrebas. In traditional role, the Will Transcendent typically coordinates operations among his lower Executors and sets policy when judgment calls are required. Though the title is ceremonial and largely does not convey the proper ranking of the person behind it, no wise man will deny that the Will Transcendent gets to his or her position without having some measure of superiority over the other Executors

The second command rank among the Executors are the positions considered that of the Star League royalty. Queen Sora Serenity, Lord Sephiroth, Lady Carlie Andane, Lord Tenchi, and Lord Baigan Nostra represent the highest rank of royalty among the Star League; when paired with Eric Atrebas, the six form the rank of the First Executors and are rightfully the founding party of the Star League. Any questions on procedure or judgment are generally referred to this rank for final say in the matter.

In the last position of command stand the Planetary Princesses, a collection of various surrogates trained by the first six Executors that served as retainers to Queen Sora Serenity. One Princess exists for each planet in the Sol star system, excepting Earth; the Princess of the Moon would be considered an alternate for that position, except that Princess Serena served briefly as the Empress of the Multimage Empire and voluntarily disavowed herself of any ranking among the Executors. (Ironically, the Queen, the Princess, and the daughter of the Princess (the present Empress of the Magi) have all sworn themselves to the same goal, though none of the three are renowned for agreeing on the methods by which to achieve that goal. This has produced more than one family feud that required the intervention of another Executor to settle the ensuing conflict before it turned outright hostile.)

Among the rank-and-file Executors, by official position there is no true delineation of authority. In practice, Executors have a tendency to recognize authority by way of their personal ranking relative to each other. Additionally, a specialist in a certain art, a certain veteran of political situations, or a native to a certain geographical or national area will generally be considered the ranking authority in scenarios where their prior experience would be the most use to an Executor team. In all reality, experience counts for more in terms of command than does power, though in the end all deference is given to the duties needed before consideration of rank is ever asked.

The actual rankings (in terms of power) for Executors are as follows: (Descending order)

Final Executor  
>Master Executor<br>Elite Executor  
>Veteran Executor<br>High Executor  
>Executor<br>Transcendent (Recruits only; this is also the power rating to which most old Divine fall in, such as the Greek or Norse Gods)

Organized ranking and listing of power is handled by a large relic device fashioned into a temple on Luna Zero, nearby the Lunar Palace. Commonly considered a tourist attraction for tour groups, the Temple of the Executors sees a lot of traffic on a daily basis from civilians and occasionally sees personnel come in and out to verify their status. This temple also has the notable side effect of seeing beings that are specifically not Executors but rank among them in terms of power, and wholly 95 percent of those 'unranked' beings are totally unknown to the Star Empires, Star League, or the Executors. It is believed that those beings are super-rated divinities from other dimensions or some other manner of being henceforth unencountered. (**Author's Note:** a goodly portion of these super-rated beings are actually Crusaders. This will be covered in later sections of the Jokers Wild and side stories.)

**OPERATIONAL INFLUENCE**:  
>"Where all men, where celestial beings fear to tread, that is our training ground. Locations far worse are our duty grounds."<p>

Where an Executor stands, they are often considered the highest authority in questions of their duty, both by law of the Star League and by practical considerations. This said, they do not have absolute authority over the Star Empires, only in matters they can demonstrate cause conflict with their duties. In practical terms, an Executor will generally leave the affairs of a State to that government unless the actions of the government are causing unnecessary blood and casualty.

As an Executor commonly spends more than two-thirds their operation time outside the bounds of the Star League, the rulebook is a bit different. When not in affiliated territory, Executors typically operate silent and unobtrusive unless required to act overtly; stealth is the first and foremost defense an Executor can call upon, and is considered one of the most reliable. Operating in the shadows, an Executor can move through the undercurrents of a population to determine the state of affairs and the antagonists, which would allow him/her to plan moves to clean house. In cases where the society is too homogeneous for an Executor to properly conceal himself, the option is often considered to use invisibility for concealment and mobility, achieving the same net result without being seen or heard at all.

The major operation point for the Executors is the consideration of operating against genocidal tyrants, and this is where an Executor truly shows their value. Though there is little expectation of a single or even a few Executors willingly engaging to stop a rogue government without support, a single Executor is capable of operating as a force multiplier for native resistance forces. Even without striking a single blow in anger, an Executor can quadruple the effectiveness of resistance forces and give them instant global reach with wizardry. When involved directly in bringing down an omnicidal government as is common for Executors, the multiplication is on the order of a factor of ten in resistance effectiveness. Few technological forces are equipped or trained to deal with a professional combat wizard whose striking power can have planetary-scale effects or less as needed.

When forced to go alone, Executors are still capable to the job of bringing down rogue governments, though this is considered bad form and generally avoided. In such scenarios, the Executor aims not necessarily for engaging directly, but to rally persons who want to resist into taking up the banner of their own lives and honor. In the event that terror overpowers the entirety of the suborned, Executors will typically call in support or extra Executors to provide multiple striking points. Operations are made as rapid as possible, deliberately using hyperwar and shock tactics to overwhelm the target tyrant before he can entrench and force more casualties in the ensuing battles.

Once a tyrant is removed or eliminated, the planet is turned over to the people after a brief consolidation period. Executors do not simply walk away after the planet is freed from its prior oppression; history shows this is a fertile policy for breeding more tyrants, so the rebuild process is carefully managed and defended against corruption. If a rescued territory falls in the territory of one of the Star Empires or another state of the Star League, and the population wishes to join said territory, Executors will assist in the transition to rule by the consented party. If outside the Star League bounds, but the populace wants to join the Star League as a Member Planet or as a Protected State, Executors will also assist in this transition and aid in the setup of necessary Star League facilities. Territories that voluntarily join the Star League in this fashion always do so as a republic state, and are effectively self-governed within the limitations of the Star League Codicil. (This latter rule was enacted to prevent Executors from setting up their own little fiefdoms or small Star Empires, a discouragement against empire-building on their part. This rule has been effectively circumvented, by way of legitimate purchases of a planet or territory by the Executor in question; more than a few Executors have literally bought their own Empire under the nose of the Star League legislature, much to their frustration.)

Though technically not an active duty, a portion of the Executors at any time can be found on vacation, usually well away from the areas of duty they normally operate in, to cool off from the stresses of duty. In common practice, an Executor will literally request themselves to be reborn as a civilian on an uninvolved planet, retaining their extant power and memories but living in a new form and with no obligation to operate until their vacation is done. In this, the life of a civilian is often considered the ultimate vacation for an Executor, as it is a far cry from the political machinations and warfare of their duty. Such vacations will last anywhere from thirty years to a hundred, a pittance of time to beings that have a minimum life expectancy of 32,000 years in operation. Such heavily extended vacations provide the best rest for war-wearied Executors, as it allows them to live a life they had denied themselves and it allows them to bleed off the stress and horror of their duty over the span of decades, which has proven to be the best healing of the mental frustrations of the job. Even still, these vacation details can be stressful and dramatic of their own right, especially when the Executor is forced to take action on his or another's behalf.

**THE SHADOW WAR: EXECUTOR VERSUS CRUSADER**:  
>"Never assume we are invincible; these bastards dropped Lord Sephiroth in direct combat. They are to be respected, not ignored."<p>

For thousands of years, rumors have made their way around various Star Empires, tales of mysterious forces, unknown starships, unrecognizable magical effects, and especially of unrecognizable persons with no discernible national origin. Even the First Executor spoke of an encounter with beings unknown, going only by the name of Crusader. These rumors came to a head when a particularly arrogant Fleet Admiral of the Negaverse made the mistake of challenging a Crusader warship that had mistakenly jumped into Negaverse territory. In less than 10 minutes of gun action, a single Crusader warship, out weighed by nearly 4-to-1 by Negaverse fleet assets, was able to utterly destroy every Negaverse unit on the battlefield. Though some records were salvaged from the destroyed units, no man survived to tell the tale.

In the centuries immediately after the resurrection of the Star League, more encounters occurred between the Executors and the Crusaders. All such encounters were effectively inconclusive; at first hint of being discovered, the crusader forces invariably retreated, often times in such fashion that they could not he traced. The first properly recorded encounter between an Executor and a Crusader was also the first time a Crusader had been successfully cornered in such a way that they could not retreat. Interestingly, even when trapped the Crusader requested the right to leave in peace and without further harassment. It was only after this request was denied the the first hostile action between a Crusader and an Executor happened. On investigation, it was determined that the weapon used to strike down the involved Executor was a 40 mm antimatter grenade, a weapon not even in common production among the Star Empires.

Several more inconclusive engagements occurred between crusader and Executor forces over the following millennia, though it would not be until nearly 2000 years after the renewal of the Star League that a decisive battle took place. Executor-Lord Sephiroth tracked down and cornered a reconnaissance team of Crusaders on a planet well outside the borders of the Star League, and made fair to force their hand by way of enshrouding the entire planet in an anti-teleportation field. With no obvious way to retreat, and no hope of evacuation in a timely fashion, the Crusaders chose to directly engage the very famous Lord of Swordsmen by way of their own enchanted weapons and armor. The ensuing 90 minutes of battle and subsequent defeat of Lord Sephiroth in blade-to-blade combat provided the first major evidence that whoever these Crusaders were, they were extremely serious players in the art of interdimensional warfare.

Further encounters and engagements have occurred, though the nature of these engagements is classified. At present, it is believed that the Crusaders are a neutral party to the Star League, as Crusader forces readily retreat before being forced into combat and only engage in battle against Executors when no other option is feasible. With the exception of the one fully destroyed naval fleet, no notable combat encounter has ever been recorded between the forces of a Star Empire and these Crusaders. (Full details of these encounters will be spread across the Multimage Chronicles and the Jokers Wild series.)

Thus ends the briefing on the Star League and Executors. Full information and combat records will be made available in coming releases of critical data files and as analysis of the Remembrance of the Star League is completed and translated.


	5. Hiding In Plain Sight

(Joker's Wild Set 2, Chapter 5: Hiding In Plain Sight)

(15 December C.E. 72, 1000 hours)  
>(<em>Garm<em>-class Multipurpose Ship _Lupine_)

"All sections report status," the Captain ordered.

"Engines, go," the engineering controller reported.

"Sensors and comms, go," the Sensor Officer responded.

"Helm, go," the pilot responded after a brief check.

"Cargo Alpha, green," from the old and wizened loadmaster, the Captain took his declaration as holy writ.

"Cargo Bravo, ready for travel," the second loadmaster noted.

"Cargo Charlie, all green down here," a greenhorn loadmaster acknowledged.

"Cargo Delta, set and ready," the fourth loadmaster noted. Hers was also a greenhorn position, but everyone figured her up to the task.

"Life support is nominal. No leaks," the maintenance controller concluded the sound-off.

"Captain, ship is ready for launch," the First Officer acknowledged.

"Helm, take us out past Armory One and hook toward the Asteroid Belt. It is time to begin the mining operations in earnest," the newly-frocked Captain said calmly. Having served as first officer under Captain Freeman on the _Byzantine_, she knew how to run a ship of war, and leading an expedition of civilians on a semi-ship-of-war to the Asteroid Field was no big deal.

"Out past Armory one, then left to the Asteroid Field, roger that," the helmsman replied. Rather than using manual controls to set it in place, he used a digital control panel and map of the area to plot the course. A single stroke took the ship past Armory One through an allowed transit corridor, and a second stroke on the control panel created a course from the outside of the Armory One territory to the near edge of the Asteroid Field. The pilot changed the classification on this second leg of the trip to 'Strategic Transit' to conserve fuel as best as possible.

The ship would operate under 'Tactical Engines' for high maneuverability in close to the colonies, and once outside the Armory One SDIZ would switch engine mode to 'Strategic Engines' to transit the gap at best possible speed with minimal fuel usage. Of course, with the switch to the different engine mode, maneuver options would be limited but not to the point of being unsafe. When accelerating at a G continual engine burn, any ship tended to fly like a brick. Careful attention had to be paid to where they were going and what objects threatened that transit.

"Course set and locked into nav computer. We are good to go at this time," the Helmsman said. "Should be beginning launch at this time."

True to his proclamation the ship lurched slightly as the engines applied flame to test for a burnout, and once the control systems were satisfied they would work properly, applied steady thrust. "Nice to see it works as advertised," the Maintenance Controller noted wryly.

"Hey, give the young girl the benefit of the doubt, eh?" the Helmsman rubbed the top of his control console. "We made it from ZAFT territory to here without any issue."

"Enough, you guys," the Captain squelched the invocations of Murphy. "If the ship has a problem, we're no more than five days away from rescue with the other ship being a tug-type. And, it was engineered as a joint venture between ZAFT and us, so it is built to high standards. Second, you have the bridge; I'm heading into the holds."

"Aye, Second has the conn."

Captain Yvette Hollis exited the bridge into the crew section immediately rearward of the command facilities. Most of the crew and all of the passengers had their quarters in the front of the ship, the remainder had their quarters immediately forward of the engine section. The bulk of the ship between the front and the rear was empty space for cargo, or in this case loaded space full of cargo and miners.

The _Garm_-class ships were massive, in comparison to local-designed ships. The largest local ship was the _Archangel_-class — 420 meters long, and most of that was dead space. ZAFT was trying to outdo that with the _Minerva_-class ships, but it would be shorter in overall length with a higher density of material. The ship mass would be roughly the same, but it would be faster than the _Archangel_ and have better armor. Mendel's own _Garm_-class ships had far less mass, but a lot more open space.

The trick of the _Garm_-class was the modular construction design of the ship. For the _Garm_, all one had to do was remove all the hull plates from the bridge rearward, and everything was wide open — superstructure, plating, crew facilities, components, cargo areas, engine and power systems, the works. The structure could be reinforced or stripped down to add or remove towing capabilities. Weapons components could be added or removed. Cargo spaces could be reconfigured or changed out to fighter bays, or troop quarters, or fuel bunkers for fleet replenishment, or even passenger quarters for long-haul transport. In terms of ship configurations, there were already seventeen proposed variants and the only thing stopping the shipwrights from coming up with more was the lack of ships to apply variations to. So far, only eight ships existed, and only four of those ships were active. Hell, the base variant Garm ships had only half the engine power of the common combat variations, and at least one shipwright was making noise about a 'high-speed variant' of the Garm configurations.

In this case the bulk of the ship was given over to transport of the necessities of a remote mining colony operation — in this case, a habitat for fifty miners, supplies for at least two months, engines, fuels, and the necessary equipment to do the mining. Oxygen reprocessors would be in use in the facility while algae tanks were set up in place for continual oxygen renewal. A fusion reactor capable of powering the facility for years, and a necessary supply of water to run it, occupied pride-of-place in the cargo holds.

As she trudged back towards the engine systems, the miners greeted her enthusiastically. This was the career they had worked toward, scarce mining pickings on the planet below and on the Moon, meant when Mendel promised to exploit the other planets they answered the call with open arms and ready pick-axes. Of course, most of the take would be Mendel's to do with as they saw fit, but the terms of the operation were for a cut of the material mined, not a base salary. Performance would determine their paygrade, and every man in the outfit knew they would outdo the 'minimum wage' requirements by a large order. They figured one good-sized asteroid with tungsten in it would pay better at Mendel's going rate than they could rightfully expect in a year's work on the planet below.

The ship shifted course briefly to port, and again to starboard ten seconds later as the Captain was worming her way through the labyrinth of cargo containers. The maneuvers were likely a dodge for some other traffic or debris of some kind, nothing serious as far as she could determine. The ship's operations panel did not show any threats to the ship in near-space, but they were passing through a traffic lane, so...

Captain Hollis sighed, thankful that so far the Earth Alliance was unable to complete their myriad threats. Given enough time, the will of freedom throughout all humanity would win over the terrorists on the planet below...

-x-x-x-

(17 December C.E. 72, 0600 hours Lima (Local) time)  
>(Earth Alliance Political Headquarters, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, Atlantic Federation Territory)<p>

"This meeting is now called to order," Chairman Riseman noted. "Admiral Sutherland, you have the floor.

The Admiral was quick to take the podium, as nobody in the room was interested in delays this early in the morning. "Thank you, Chairman Riseman. The purpose of this conference of Blue Cosmos, LOGOS, and Earth Alliance senior leadership is to cover plans for covert actions to be taken in the next three months against hostile parties in space. The method is to state proposal, make amendments to proposals, and vote or quash into action. Please feel free to interrupt with questions as needed. Ensign, first proposal, please," and the requested technician advanced the projector to the first plan.

"Now that's ambitious," Lord Djibril said after a low-whistle from one of the Blue Cosmos Theater Generals.

"This first proposal leverages a new and secret asset in our arsenal, namely the _Girty Lue_-class ships now coming out of shakedown." A few murmurs arose from the LOGOS side of the crowd, but they did not last long. "With enhanced stealth capabilities, we believe it possible to sneak past the ZAFT pickets in the vicinity of Armory One and conduct a direct raid on the ZAFT PLANT Armory One itself. This serves two purposes: one, remind ZAFT that we are just as inventive as they think they are, and two, when combined with a special operations infiltration op, we can secure these machines," and again the Ensign advanced the projector.

"Damn, new models in ZAFT? Not good news," the Eastern Eurasia BC Theater Commander groused.

"These three machines, which we believe are code-named Chaos, Gaia, and Abyss, are presently being put through prototyping phases in ZAFT military facilities. The three machines are already slated for pilots, specifically Heine Westenfluss for the Chaos, Shiho Hannenfuss to the Gaia, and Yzak Joule to the Abyss. Most of you should know those three names, given they are the third, second, and first-rated pilots respectively in the ZAFT force structure. The best weapons possible for their best pilots, and Durandal supposedly already has plans for them."

"Please tell," Djibril asked.

"You are all aware that Mendel uses the code Zellbrigen in their governance actions, correct?" Nodded heads around the table answered the question. "Durandal intends to stack his deck with high-output machines and his best personnel, in an attempt to wheedle some concessions out of Mendel using Trials of Possession. The major arse-beating delivered to his best personnel last month by the _Dominion_ has proved that the deck for this plan has to be stacked real high for any major hope of success, and this is his first pile of chips. We take them, we deny ZAFT a chance to advance their position and we can research the technologies contained within to our advantage."

"And what else does this proposal entail?" Riseman asked calmly.

"Well, we thoroughly intend to sink ZAFT shipping both on the ingress and egress parts of the naval phase. Any damage we cause to their naval forces will put a major dent in their guard and morale."

"And how does Mendel factor into this?" Djibril asked for his side of the house.

"Not at all," Sutherland responded calmly. "Our combination Trial and Raid of last year ended with the crews of several of the involved ships being quietly ejected into space as execution for firing nuclear arms on the colony — those who were alive at the end of the day, that is. Mendel is clearly capable of detecting invisible ships at a significant portion of their common sensor ranges. If we can avoid them completely, it does not jeopardize the mission and so much the better for it. And that is the gist of the first proposal: get in, steal their toys, run like mad. Nothing fancy."

"Fancy gets people killed in a battlefield situation," the BC Theater Commander to Europe said calmly. A few of the LOGOS reps railed silently at the comment, but held their peace. "I propose an amendment to the operation. We send some of our second-generation Extended personnel to do the snatch and extract work. If anyone has a good chance of getting in and out safely, I have three that can do so."

"I will want to review the jackets (1) of these personnel, but conditionally approved," Sutherland said. The Extended Program was a joint EA-BC venture, though most of the operations were in the hands of BC and the funding was provided by LOGOS. It was a 'black' operation, and so far not even Mendel appeared to know about it's main facilities or turnout rates. They certainly did know about the Extendeds, they had three on the _Dominion_, but so far no evidence of details beyond that.

"Can we have them attack the staging ground for the new ZAFT Warship? _Minerva_?" one of LOGOS' more senior personnel asked.

"Not practical, if we want to extract these machines in working condition," The USSA BC Commander answered curtly. "This op is going to be hell to begin with, much less adding an assault on a Warship to the mix. Don't complicate matters."

"Amendment withdrawn," the LOGOS officer answered stuffily.

"Any other amendments?" Sutherland asked. "Very well, vote time." Lights came on around the table, precious few of them red. "Operation is approved. I will begin moving assets into play shortly."

"I look forward to this one," Djibril said with a bedeviled grin.

"Second proposal is to begin significant terrorism operations in Scandinavia to prevent their continued interference in European affairs and cripple their blossoming naval ambitions before they become a threat." The slide projector changed again, detailing his plan for the campaign. "We will begin light — famous Coordinators and similar, much as BC began with in decades past. This will also be used as a cover operation to bring in heavier weapons and teams for the second and subsequent phases."

"What kind of personnel are you thinking for this?" the BC Planetary Commander asked directly.

"My floor figure for phase 2 is roughly two thousand troops. Subsequent phases assume some attrition and are less stringent on personnel requirements," Sutherland admitted practically. He knew that even the best terrorists would not have a 100% survival rate, and with Scandinavia hiring in a lot of mercenaries the casualty figures would be horrific if something went wrong.

"Understood. I'll earmark three grand for the break-in phase, if it makes things easier," the same commander thought aloud.

"Three grand on the ground would do the job nicely," Sutherland said. "Mixed weapons, nothing major. Phase two involves break-ins at police and national guard facilities, so acquiring heavier weapons will be somewhat done on the ground during ops. Phase three involves direct strikes on naval and aerospace assets — primarily their spaceport at Hedemora, but also their Baltic Sea shipping and naval graving docks. The more damage we cause to their infrastructure, the greater their economy takes a hit, and when that goes south, they are out of the game. Phase four is recovery of personnel as possible. Total expected operation time is four months, start to finish."

"Standard fare for us, but on a larger-than-normal scale," the BC operator for Eastern Eurasia noted with an approving nod. "I'm in, since you'll need a field commander in case shit and fan conflict with each other."

"I am a military man, I usually know what that sounds like when it happens," Sutherland said wryly. More than a few chuckled to his wan joke response. "Any amendments?"

"I suggest we make one or two good hits to political targets, make sure the leadership in Scandinavia gets the message the first time," Riseman surprised the crowd by suggesting.

"I think I can come up with a few possibles," Sutherland admitted. "Any other amendments?" There were none. "Please cast your votes." Within ten seconds, the table had lit up green — no man voted against a simple operation such as this.

"Classic hit-and-run campaign," Djibril noted with a smile.

"Aye, that is what it amounts to, sir," Sutherland replied to the head of LOGOS. "Third proposal is sabotage operations against Oceania and Carpentaria in the southern pacific..."

As the two-dozen men at the table continued debating the next several covert operations, all of them allowed their memory to lapse on one clear fact: they were being listened to from afar by persons with active minds and special skillsets. What they would not understand until long after the fact is that Mendel was not the only group with such talents any more...

-x-x-x-

(20 December C.E. 72, 1000 hours Lima (Local) time)  
>(Malchio Orphanage, Emirate of Orb)<p>

"This request is...unusual?" Kira Yamato asked.

"To say the least about it," Athrun said curtly. "Look, I checked into what we know about the company. Their home shop is Copernicus, but their financial backing is somewhere in the PLANTs. They have branch offices here, Mendel, Equatorial, East Asia, and Scandinavia. Supposedly, they're gearing up to open in Europe, the Mideast, Brazil, and North America. They're wide open on this subject, so it looks like it is not territorial."

"Mendel?" Kira asked fairly. This op had just enough subtlety to be something a devious Magi officer would come up with, but not enough subtlety to divorce him or her of suspicion.

"No, actually, ZAFT," Athrun said with a sigh to follow. "They may not be territorial about the issue, but they are definitely factional. The chairman of the operation is Talia Gladys, one of ZAFT's premier warship captains."

"No subtlety in that choice of personnel," Murrue said from beside the two pilots. She had an iced drink for each, non-alcoholic since both would be on duty within the day. "Talia's a stalwart, but not hugely creative. This plan had to come from someone else. Durandal, maybe?"

"Possible, but unlikely," Athrun said, considering his analysis on the data Orb had on Gilbert Durandal. "He thinks in terms of chess, but this is a move that kills off an advantage, not necessarily creates one. An open-source AI Framework would benefit anyone who wanted to put it to use, not just ZAFT."

"If not Talia or Gilbert, then who?" Murrue asked fairly of the younger pilot.

"Yzak Joule," Colonel Kisaka said as he approached the small chat group on the balcony. "Yzak is not listed in the structure of this plan, since he is way too high-profile to get away with it clean, but Talia has enough plausible deniability to skirt. She just needs to have a good excuse and stick to it, and if she expends personal capital on the project, can make it look like a completely private venture."

"And then the world gets a modular AI program," Athrun completed the overarching thought. "Then what?"

"Mendel loses its advantages in AI availability," Kira noted the obvious change of status quo. "I can't think of any other reason."

"That may be all the reason ZAFT needs. Think about it; instant force multiplier, all you need is some high-power machines and you are good to go," Kisaka said warily. "The applications of a true AI are pretty close to unlimited, all you need is the hardware and interface to use it."

"It levels the playing field," Lacus announced as her idea as she approached the group. With Cagalli in tow, it was obvious this gathering had the intention of getting something done. "Mendel always stays one step ahead of the rest by having advantages nobody else can meet or defeat. An Artificial Intelligence entity would be one of those advantages. When the Mendel AI has to compete against other units, it loses its edge."

"And any corporation with a budget for hardware and a taste for results can invest in an AI to cut manpower or do research / design work, or both," Kira said in the relative silence thereafter.

"Or they can use their AI units as sabotage spearheads against other corporations," Kisaka played the offensive card on the subject of corporate design wars.

"So, if this is serious, what do we want to do about it?" Cagalli asked, knowing that the actual subject matter was well outside her area of expertise, but she knew that she had to make a decision on actions to be taken.

"If Yzak is the stage-manager for this product, it is dead serious," Athrun said. "They will make an open-source AI or die trying, no two ways about it. The question becomes do we want to participate as requested or not?"

"It might be fun," Kira noted. "It will definitely be a challenge. And they are paying us to be senior Quality Control Programmers for the project, 10,000 earth-dollars a year for 10 hours effort a week."

"I could always use a few extra bucks," Athrun said cheerily. "Dating gets expensive, more so when you're dating royalty."

"Shut it," Cagalli warned. Murrue, Kisaka, and Lacus all suppressed giggles to one extent or another, and all for different reasons.

"And can we get the take from this if we participate?" Murrue asked.

"Open Source, Captain," Kira replied immediately. "During writing and after completion, anyone can use it — even Mendel, if they feel like it."

"That is a scary thought, especially if the Earth Alliance takes advantage of it, and especially if they grab the source halfway through and do something stupid like trying to run it half-built." Kisaka's worry was predicated on the dozens upon dozens of science fiction stories built around the concept of a rogue AI entity. In reality, trying to run a half-built program as he suggested was a recipe for crashing your system, not attempted inadvertent world domination.

Athrun decided calling him on it was worth the effort. "Erm, Colonel, I don't think it works like that. A program half-built isn't going to do much of anything except fail to run properly."

"Oh, didn't think of that," Kisaka admitted.

"Do we add any extra resources to it ourselves?" Cagalli asked, considering that the project could be useful to Orb more than it could be used as a sledgehammer against Mendel.

"I don't know about Athrun, but I intend to take the offer. Other than chasing kids around the Orphanage, all I have going for me right now is the odd contracting job and my militia work for Orb. Anything is better than nothing at this point," Kira admitted candidly.

"I was more into the mechanical aspects of the trade, but I can still code and I can debug." Athrun had proved himself capable to both tasks by way of stealing the Aegis, so no person in the circle disagreed with him on that note. "And, I have my justification for the hard cash, so..."

"What about Erika?" Kira asked.

"She might join, if they're looking for another QC Programmer," Kisaka said. "She does have a family, so she's not likely to do it pro bono."

"Well, if anything, we can at least make sure it is done right," Kira said with a hint of smug satisfaction to voice.

-x-

(20 December C.E. 72, 1600 hours Zulu (GMT) Time)  
>(Mendel Colony, Server Farm under GARM R&amp;D Facility)<p>

One thing Gerald had requested of the AI Entity that now helped administrate Mendel affairs was to keep an eye out for anyone else trying to do an AI program of their own. Special attention was to be given to the Earth Alliance and Blue Cosmos should they try, but the purpose of such recon was not to sabotage, but to make sure it was done right.

The Magi knew intrinsically that an AI entity would not go bad 'right out of the box', if programmed right. The major issue with AI entities was deliberately malicious programming, and that was a case of few and far apart incidents. Usually, what would happen is a sabotaged AI would get inside a cluster and try to 'nuke' the other AI entities in the machines, though a coalition of clean AI units could entrap, reduce, and eliminate a bug in the system with amazing efficiency. Warfare on a computerized battlefield, effectively, and the Magi had a long history of doing such battles.

Herein, Gerald had seen the threat of persons beginning their own AI operations; when programmed incorrectly the new AI units would create the circumstances of server-to-server warfare. Thus he ordered the Mendel Primary AI to cover the new projects and make sure they were programmed correctly to prevent a rogue build — someone would have to deliberately and maliciously bypass the internal safeties to cause havoc with an AI, so long as JADE could see and access the project it should be safe.

Of course, when the ZAFT AI project began in earnest, it did not take JADE long to see it start showing up on message boards. After reading through the websites for the project, JADE decided it was time to get in on the ground floor herself. "Lightbringer, this is JADE in GARM facility, requesting priority and secured communications," she put out on the Protectorate-wide C3 band. So long as he was near enough to get radio signals, he would hear.

"This is Lightbringer, I read you five by five. Send your traffic Ai," Gerald responded immediately, being in the hot-seat in his Gundam on the _Dominion_ meant he had no excuse not to answer.

"I have an interesting issue that just came up on the radar, sir. ZAFT has started a rather aggressive open-source artificial intelligence construction program. They are covering it as a private venture under Captain Talia Gladys, but all indications point back to Yzak Joule and some manner of plan he is running. How copy?"

"Good copy," Lightbringer answered. "JADE, execute draft plan proposed on this subject. If they are crowdsourcing the development, get inside and make sure it is done right. I want to ensure that we don't spend the next several decades fighting asshat AI units that were coded dumbass and aggressive."

"Confirm," JADE answered. "I think I'll sign up tomorrow, don't want to make it look like I'm on top of the matter. It is all done off a code-safe repository, no face-to-face required. Easy operation to write it and clean it up. I will have a report for you as of 0900 tomorrow. JADE is out on this channel."

-x-x-x-

(22 December C.E. 72, 2300 hours Zulu (GMT) Time)  
>(Warship <em>Dominion<em>, Star Lounge area)

It did not take Flay Allster long to discover the new modification to the lounge area on the _Dominion_ — some enterprising soul had opened up a coffee and snack shop in the lounge area, which had been renamed Star Lounge by one of the engine mechanics. Her PT routine had been reduced to three days a week instead of all week, so she actually had some break time...occasionally.

Of course, if Flay knew it, so did everyone else on the ship. The brave soul running the cafe was also making a killing in keeping the staff going with caffeine and sugar. And it was a haunt favored of the pilots, given the average pilot was fueled by jello and coffee, two things in good supply at the cafe.

"How goes, Flay?" Gundam Pilot Alicia Yamato sat down across from her, being one of the few seats available in the lounge still.

"Not bad at all," the Sensor Operator replied evenly. "You?"

"Damn good," Yamato replied. Flay had been struck by curiosity as to her surname, which turned out to be her bloodheritage. Alicia Yamato was Eugenic of the Yamato Bloodheritage, and was in no way whatsoever related to Flay's former boy-toy. Yamato was an older bloodheritage, one of the first formed of the heroes of the Divine Wars that the Magi won in no small way. The progenitor of the bloodline had been an ace in a Battlemech, and Alicia showed a natural aptitude for machine warfare that followed in Magi theories on the subject. "Lookin' forward to the coming months. With more ship docks coming online in ZAFT, and more colonies starting up here, we'll be getting more ships on the line. In that case, I may be moving out to another ship to serve as Line Commander."

"You mean Senior Pilot?" Flay asked.

"Yeah, I'm in the running for one of those positions. So is Argus, but the Terrible Trio are on hold," Alicia counted off. "Of course, Wendy would be in the running if she wasn't already assigned to Angel Team."

"Is the boss ever going to rebuild his unit?" Flay asked plaintively.

"Not happening," Gundam Pilot Clotho Bauer said as he dropped down in a seat next to Flay. "Shani asked a couple weeks back. All Lightbringer did was shake his head and walk away. That means either the quals are so apeshit high we can't reach 'em, some other hidden entry requirement is on the list and we'll never know, or he has no desire to do it."

"Probably the third," Alicia nodded twice, considering how to explain what she knew. "Gerald is old, as in, the dirt on some planets is younger than he is, old," she said. "I have a sneaking suspicion he has been through a couple nanomachine rebuilds of his body, or a few age reversal spells, or both. Probably both. He's been there and done a lot of that, and I think he's finally approaching burnout territory."

"Sad to see it happen that way," Flay said, having realized the horror of watching someone burn out when she tried cooking off Kira Yamato in years past.

"It will happen to most of us, if not all," Alicia concluded.

"On an unrelated subject, what are we going to be doing once we get down planetside?" Clotho asked.

"Screwing around," Alicia said casually. "Five days of shore leave, Clotho. The old Navy expression for what you do on shore is 'get screwed, blued and tattooed'. I hope I don't have to explain anything more about that, follow?"

"I think I can fill in the gaps," Clotho answered calmly.

"Now that was a pretty nice unintentional double entendre," Alicia praised the junior Gundam pilot. "Then again, I keep forgetting you're pretty close to getting married, so it might not apply to you."

"I don't get it. Whaddya mean?" Clotho asked suspiciously.

"Given how much action you and Mayura get, I really hope I don't have to explain it," Alicia answered calmly.

"Huh?" Clotho paused for a few seconds to consider it, then his eyes snapped wide open in realization. "Oh, wow, I did go there. No comment," he concluded.

"That's better," Flay patted him on the head as she would have a particularly cute puppy. "I intend to do some serious shopping. I've got a load of green, and C-bills are honored across the USSA, so I see me going to do some good shopping, and maybe some good pampering while I'm down there. Been awhile since I've had a spa treatment. What about you, Alicia?"

The Gundam Pilot made a show of considering it. "Well, I'll be at least two days active, I've been issued orders to fly to Manaus to examine the USSA Southern Cross units, and at least one day I want to swing by Sao Paulo. I've never been to Terra before, any instance of Terra, and once in my life I want to see where it started."

"Huh?" Clotho asked, confused. "Where what started?"

"The Empire. The First Emperor began the campaign that eventually brought down the Imperial Japanese and the Nazis in Sao Paulo. The scenery is likely to be very different today, since that history never came to pass here, but I'd just like to live the town at least once."

"Wow, never thought about that," Clotho said. "Probably not this time, but next time we're in South America I may do that."

"We'll get to see another set of sights before then," a more stern voice interjected. All three persons bolted to attention when they realized who was speaking. "As you three were," Captain Jamestown said as he took a seat at their table — ostensibly the last seat available in the lounge area. "Much colder sights, as it happens. We have a drop operation to Scandinavia to pick up some manufacturing equipment for Handel. It's a contract job, and they are paying top-dollar in discounted ammo for us for retrieving it. This will be a high-value grab and extract, personnel and gear. All of you need to be on your best behavior, because Blue Cosmos is known to operate in the area."

"Aye, sir. Any time on ground there?" Alicia requested.

"A couple hours, enough to load up and lock it down, definitely not enough to hang in place unless weather grounds us. This is the dead of winter in the Baltic, so we could get snowed in for a few days." Captain Jamestown did not sound all that enthusiastic about such prospects.

"Huh, wonder if I could shake my girlfriend loose for a quick ride," Clotho thought aloud.

"What you do in bed or between shifts is your business, pilot. Anything you say can and will be gossipped about," the Captain said.

"Huh?" Clotho scratched his head in contemplation for a few moments, and once again the eyes snapped wide open when he realized it. "Damnit, went there again. Why not someone else for a change?"

"Because I'm smarter than to work myself into a corner like that, pilot," Jamestown said.

"And you have one of the most public relationships on the ship," Alicia noted.

"And you have such a way with words," Flay completed the chain of thoughts.

"Well, I'm not the only one doing well in relationships around here, Flay seems to get along real well with Oruga. Strawberry cake comes to mind, actually," he said in a clear and rather transparent effort to deflect attention away from himself.

Oddly enough, it worked. "Yeah, no contest to those charges," Flay readily admitted. "I've been in a bad one before, and I'm trying to do this one right this time."

"I sense a story there. Willing to tell?" Alicia asked. There were more than a few mysteries about Flay that were being asked about, and nobody had answers.

"No, not yet," Flay answered. "It's...a long story, and a very FUBAR story at that. I'll tell, but I'm not ready to yet."

"Well, at least you know the routine now," Alicia said clearly. "I made the mistake of waffling on my relationship before the Mobile Doll Incident. My girlfriend was on a different ship when we were hit. I honestly don't expect to see her again, but I'll hold out hope that I can return home to her."

"Wait, I heard that five by five, right? _**Girl**_friend?" Clotho asked, stunned that he even thought he heard it.

"Aff, good copy," Alicia replied tartly. "Ami Hidaka. We grew up together on Port Arthur in a backwater dimension of the Empire, and we went out for recruiting at the same time. She went straight Techstrikers because of her impressive Newtype skills, I went Commando because of my high spatial awareness but lack of ability to control remote weapons." She did not explain that there was more to joining the Commandos than a subset of Newtype Skills, but she was not interested in clouding the matter with details.

"That's hardcore," Clotho said. "So, why didn't you drag her along?"

Alicia continued, content that she would answer his question in prose. "We posted together on the _Phalanx_-class _Golden Phoenix_ after a few years, but Gerald drew me off for a power-run operation. I tried, somewhat, to get Ami to come with, but I wasn't very convincing. Now I get to beat myself up nightly because I didn't do it right."

"Oh, that sucks," Clotho said. "We need to beat Earth Alliance ass, then."

"Huh?" Captain Jamestown said. "That was wildly random and has no logic pertaining to her story. Can I get a clarification, please?"

"Well, chief, the only thing standing in the way of our jumpship project is the Earth Alliance, AKA Blue Cosmos' official governmental arm. We screw their ozone, send 'em running for the hills, and maybe that will buy us enough time to get ZAFT to help us build Asgard. Once that is done, we build some jumpships and truck it home. End of story, everyone lives happily ever after — except Blue Cosmos, of course."

"Wow, holy shit wow, you just oversimplified what we're going to have to go through by four orders of magnitude, boy," Alicia said crassly.

"Five, actually," Jamestown noted. "Making a Jumpship isn't just a matter of throwing material into a drydock and expecting a ship to come out the far end in working order. These ships take years to engineer and construct. I should know, I am one of the few people in this dimension capable of doing it. Used to be my day-job." Clotho frowned, which caused the Captain to relent. "You do have the part about beating the fail out of Blue Cosmos correct. We will have to do that, and probably in the next year or so."

"Yeah, they are itching for a fight, and they'll bring it eventually," Flay noted. "Be ready for it."

"Oh, I will be," Clotho assured her. "I will be."

-x-x-x-

(25 December CE 72, 1930 Hours UTC)  
>(Ptolemaeus Military Base, Naval Graving Docks, Luna)<p>

"Sting Oakley and two reporting for embarkation, sir!"

The Master Chief saluted the three pilots who had come to attention in front of him. "Paperwork, please," he requested. All three handed over their personnel jackets, with embarkation orders stapled to the front of the folder for easy verification. "You three are cleared. Welcome aboard, Specialists," the MCPO said as he waved them through the armed security at the loading ramp. Since LOGOS had reason to suspect a Ghost was inside Ptolemaeus, security had tripled at the facility. Sting had to clear through four separate checkpoints and this last guard before the three pilot-infiltrators could board their ship.

They had no way of knowing that Mendel deliberately false-flagged them to think that Ghosts were inside the crater base. Mendel had no desire to risk a very valuable Ghost in such confines; any manner of operational intelligence needed from the Moon was a lot easier for Calamira Weste to acquire by psionic spying than a Ghost would have been able to acquire the old-fashioned way. By false-flagging them, Mendel was forcing the Earth Alliance to waste resources on a futile defense operation.

"So, we're finally getting to go out and do that special voodoo we do so well," Auel Neider said with a grim chuckle. "Do you know who we're about to hit?"

"No," Sting admitted. "That's why we are headed for the stateroom, the Captain will know."

"I hear that. Stay close, Stella," Auel said.

"Right," the third pilot answered half-consciously.

Once inside the hull of the Girty Lue, security dropped off to minimal — and for good reason. This was a ship preparing for war, even if the rest of the Earth Alliance was not mobilizing at this time. Security would have been a safety hazard to the personnel loading supplies, fuel, and units for the ship, and themselves would have been at hazard from moving equipment.

The _Girty Lue_ class of warships was a bit smaller than the _Archangel_-class, and thus a lot more compact for roughly the same amount of material that had to be inside the hull. Corridors were narrow as a necessity of the ship's density, which also had the side-effect of preventing Mendel Marines from moving freely inside the ship. Repairs would be a little more difficult if the ship took any major damage, but the whole intention of the Girty Lue was to kill and be unseen while doing it.

Heading up in the decks of the ship led toward the command level and associated facilities, including the stateroom. This also caused a couple encounters with officers, which was no big deal. Stand at attention, salute, await return salute, continue onward when permissible. Up toward the bridge and stateroom, however, Sting had encountered armed guards and barred hatches, suggesting that security was even tight up here.

"Pilots Oakley, Neider, and Loussier to speak to the officer on deck," Sting prompted the guard at the primary lateral crosshatch that led to the bridge area.

"Identification, please," the guard ordered. The officer at the checkpoint received their ID tags and checked them against a roster. "You three are cleared. Commander Roanoke is in the stateroom at this time."

"Thank you," Sting said as he continued through the checkpoint and toward the Stateroom. It was not their first time on the ship, but only now was it their duty posting. At the door, he knocked twice to get the attention of anyone in the room.

"Who goes there?" A voice shouted from the far side.

"Specialist Sting Oakley and two to speak to Captain Roanoke, sir!" Sting shouted in response, to make sure he was heard.

"Enter," the voice ordered. Sting opened the door to the stateroom and stood aside for his teammates to enter first. Inside, they were joining Captain Ian Lee and Commodore Neo Roanoke, the two most senior officers on the ship.

The three pilots came to attention and saluted. "Specialists Sting Oakley, Stella Loussier, and Auel Neider, reporting for duty, sirs!"

The two officers returned the salutes. "Welcome aboard, pilots. Stand at ease, all three of you," Ian Lee acknowledged the show of honors. "Well, Neo, your turn."

Neo Roanoke nodded twice. "Okay, I'm pretty sure you received posting orders, did you receive operations orders?"

"No, sir, we were curious about why we have been in limbo until now, sir," Sting replied.

"Not that I'm objecting, but it might be nice to know what we need to do, sir," Auel added to Sting's note.

"Little hard to do your job without an idea what you need to do," Neo conceded with a bit of glibness that told the pilots he had been screwed once or twice like that. "I can tell you now, and you do not leave the ship, or I can tell you in a week after we slip moors," Neo offered them a choice on the matter. "Our orders do not leave the ship, due to the nature of the detail we've been ordered to do."

"Understood, sir. I vote for now."

"Now, I hate waiting," Auel said.

"No opinion, sir," Stella said, though in something of a daze.

"Very well, two and a neutral for now," Neo counted off. "This one is going to be a hair-raiser. We are infiltrating Armory One to steal three prototype machines and cause damage to ZAFT facilities. Here are the pictures of the units you will be, erm, reallocating from ZAFT armories," Neo passed the pictures over to Sting.

"Nice," Sting commented as he passed the pictures to Auel.

"Nice and shiny. I think I'll grab the blue one, matches my hair," Auel passed the pictures behind Sting to Stella.

"I like the black one. When do we get them?" Stella handed the pictures back to Neo.

"We're taking on supplies and fuel right now. We leave in five days, and we hit the target in about three weeks." Try as they might, nobody had managed to wheedle proper interplanetary engines out of Mendel yet, and without that they were stuck to less-than-effective rocket thrusters, which made transiting colony group an affair of weeks instead of Mendel's common hours for transit.

"Training on their systems?" Sting asked fairly.

"We have mockups of the cockpits, but we do not have performance specs. You will have to learn as you go," Ian Lee said. "You will have two weeks to train before you transfer to passenger shuttle for the mission."

"I wish you all good luck, because you will need it," Neo declared boldly. "Not only will you be working inside the belly of the beast, you will be next door to the meanest customers in Space. You came to us highly recommended for the job. Time to prove it."

-x-x-x-

(30 December CE 72, 1000 Hours UTC)  
>(Graving Dock Control, Colony Aprilius One, ZAFT Territory)<p>

"Well, here's our belated Christmas present to Mendel," the Dock Controller noted with a soured tone to voice.

"Relax there, Chief," Yzak replied evenly. "We gambled, we lost. No big deal. We'll get it back another day."

"How? Their game, their rules. It's rigged!" the same Controller wailed.

"Not really. I've won a few bets against them, but on more level odds. We bidded against a very impressive prize, and we couldn't bid high enough to take it. That's how it works. The challenge is proportionate to the prize we aim for."

"It's freaking insane is what it is," the Controller answered wryly, though without heat to voice. "And what's insane is that we normal people consider it perfectly reasonable that another society would live — and sometimes die — by those rules."

"Hey, I'm ZAFT all the way, but if I ever had to pick a second home, Mendel or the Magi Empire would be it. Hell, my mom likes living there. That's one land you know exactly where you stand in terms of rights, responsibilities and freedoms at all times. No bullshit, no politics, and little crime. It's not a paradise unless you're a hardass, but it beats the hell out of planetside nations."

"Ain't that the truth," the Controller answered heartily. "So, if I may ask, what is Mendel going to do with their five MS production slots?"

"They've already asked for two ZAKU units, a GuAIZ R, and a rotating machine request of two Buster, Duel, Aegis, and Blitz."

"Serious? What do they want with those machines?" the Controller asked.

"If they mod the machines to spec after-market, they'd be seriously ass-beating machines with good pilots," Yzak answered calmly. "Last I checked, Mendel is not short on good pilots, and they have some serious aces in their ranks, so they're preparing machines for more pilots advancing in their ranks." It was no secret that the best Magi pilots were assigned to better and better units as their careers advanced, making the old pilots some of the most lethal in the Earth Sphere — and Gerald Lightbringer was one of the prime examples thereof.

Outside the colonies, the first parts of the new ships were being maneuvered into place. Mendel would be supplying the engines for the four new frames — two Mendel, two ZAFT — in a week's time, so the frames had to be ready to receive them. ZAFT was planning on providing two Graving Docks outside of Armory One to fulfill this new honor-bound obligation to provide ship-building capabilities to Mendel, not that they were not trying to develop their own such availability and on a far larger scale than ZAFT would have need for.

"Looks like the next four are coming together nicely," the Controller said as the camera viewpoint moved to the existing graving docks. All four were producing the multipurpose _Garm_-class ships, and the new units included a warship among them. Mendel's fourth ship of the class was a missile frigate, and a maxed-out one at that. It had some direct-fire guns and lasers, but the major focus of that ship was the 4 remote-controlled antishipping missiles, 60 variable-purpose AR10 Launchers (for multiple sizes of anti-ship and anti-fighter missiles), and the 1,920 (!) silos of extended-range small missiles that had little damage per missile but were capable of ruining a Mobile Suit when used en masse. The amount of small missile systems in question was so large that a full 16 gunners had been assigned to do nothing but use 6 silo groups each (120 missiles) on whatever target they were ordered to do. Yzak had been skeptical about the fact that the _Garm_ Missile Frigate had no Mobile Suits of its own...until he realized that it was designed to smash squads of MS per salvo.

"One of our next ships in the new group will be a warship type," Yzak said. "Seen the stats on it?"

"Nope. You know something?" Ears around the control booth perked up, hearing the mention of ZAFT's first Garm-class warship on the field.

"Yeah, she'll be as fast as the _Archangel_-class ships, the ones in use by Mendel, nowhere near the same level of armor but it's a hundred thousand tons lighter, so you have to skimp somewhere. She'll mount the base weapons spread of the armed merchantman type, Capital PPCs, Capital Lasers, Pulse Lasers for fighter and missile defense, but she adds four Tristan Dual Beam Cannon turrets to the front and thirty missile launchers to the rear with cross-range maneuverability, so she'll have the firepower to go toe-to-toe with anything the Earth Alliance or Orb throws at us."

"Mobile Suits?" the controller asked.

"Ten, and two small craft that can be swapped out for up to 2 more per bay."

"Damn, sounds like a piece of hardware," the Controller grinned. "How many _Nazca_ could it scrap in one-on-one engagements?"

"One after the next? I'd say five, six, easily," Yzak considered. "It's a helluva hunk of hardware. I wouldn't want to tangle with it in anything short of an _Archangel_ — or another _Garm_-class ship."

"_Minerva_?"

"Eh, maybe, if Captain Gladys gets the crew up to snuff and she puts her shots on target first time every time," Commander Joule judged.

"Well, hope she does, because the mysterious brown material is gonna hit the ventilation impeller soon enough," one of the other Controllers groused. "And when it does, it won't be evenly distributed, if you get my drift."

"Oh yeah, I hear you," Yzak said with a savage smile of his own. "I can tell you where most of it will be landing, and it won't be up here in space."

"Are we going to throw in when the party starts, or are we going to sit this one out?" the first Controller asked.

"We are planning on jumping in at the most opportune time possible," Yzak stated the unofficial position of the ZAFT command structure. "As soon as the Earth Alliance is up to its ass in problems, we will have a golden opportunity, and I think our present Chairman knows how to use opportunities."

-x-x-x-

(3 January CE 73, 0600 Hours UTC)  
>(Terra (land strip) 3, National Training Center, Mendel II Colony, Mendel Protectorate )<p>

"Attention on this net, this is Will-o-Wisp Point. I have soft contact, five Mobile Suits trudging north into the engagement zone, spread out in standard Earth Alliance search and destroy pattern. I have good conceal and am clear. Command, over to you," the Will-o-Wisp Point Commander said to his commander from the front edge of the forest area being used for this training drill.

The Commander for the defending Battle Armor formation nodded thoughtfully, a show unseen by his subordinates. "Will-o-Wisp, Command, acknowledge your traffic. Sappers, stand by for mine deployment orders. Minutemen Points, Revenant Points, stand to for direct combat with enemy forces."

"Waiting for it," the Minuteman Point Commander said. Against five Mobile Suits stood five points of Battle Armor, freshly made and trained up into forces of Mendel. The MS pilots were greenhorns themselves, and this was a training battle in the power of asymmetrical warfare.

The year had turned over, but the Mendel military did not take long in celebration. Christmas came and went as was appropriate, New Years came and went, and now everyone was on the training field again as was needed. The Touman knew that the crapfest was coming this year, and now Mendel wanted to come to the party with plenty of party favors for all the bad little boys and girls on the planet below.

"Standing by," the Sapper point commander announced.

"Command, Will-o-Wisp, tangos have passed Phase Line Alpha."

"All units, Go-code Alpha," the Star Commander ordered curtly.

The Alpha Go-Code caused two units to react. First, the Sapper Point of five troopers broke cover and jumped across the enemy walking path, each trooper dropping one of their six mine canisters in the path of two enemy machines. As they landed, the Revenant Siege Battle Armor point would open fire on the enemy machines, forcing them to either take defensive stance or try to charge the unknown battle line. Because the MS pilots would not know what they were facing, either decision was unpalatable in all reality.

A third option existed, of course, but only a tactical genius would consider it a viable response to being shot at. If the MS forces retreated and attempted to draw the Battle Armor out of their concealment, the matter would be quite a bit different.

As the Sappers landed, five light-blue beams passed over their heads and three struck the lead enemy MS. The Infantry Ion Cannon was one of many 'stolen' weapon systems in use by the Magi for the purpose of allowing the infantry to level the playing field against Armor forces. Similar to a PPC, the Ion Cannon had greater range than the standard Support PPC, but required different focusing hardware that was literally unbuildable by Mendel at present — without a ready supply of mithril, the only Ion Cannons available were the ones carried by the Marines. Those had been reallocated to the Battle Armor, and the Marines would use other weapon systems in substitute.

The Mobile Suits reacted much as the Sappers expected. They stopped dead immediately and took under fire the Revenant armors, giving the Sappers enough time to jump forward and finish the minefield unharassed and probably unobserved. One more jump of 200 meters, another can of mines per trooper, and the trap was set properly.

Unable to put full fire down on the enemy Battle Armor troopers, the MS commander ordered his machines to jump forward and close the gap by half. This was the better option of two for the Battle Armors, as his hasty action put the MS forces inside the barrier just created by the Sappers, with enemies forward and mines to their rear they had no real maneuver options, a fatal decision for a weapons platform reliant on its mobility.

"Execute go-code Bravo. All forces engage at will," the Star Commander of Infantry ordered after the last MS landed.

"Midget Demon assault!" the Point Commander for one of the two Minuteman points shouted over an open channel. "Fire missiles!" he ordered of his team, and suited actions to intention himself with dumping his one-shot SRM launcher into the heaviest enemy MS — a Training ZAKU that had been bought off ZAFT. Within ten seconds, the rest of his team had done the same and succeeded in hammering it with six training missiles total. Without doubt, that ZAKU was hurting from the hammering.

"Successful TAG (2) spot on right-side Training GM! You are cooked, pilot!" On the assumption that this would have been a real battle, the TAG laser could have been directing any manner of nasty ordinance onto the target, chief among them Long Tom Copperhead (laser-guided) shells capable of obliterating a Mobile Suit in a single stroke.

"Damnit," the TAGged pilot cursed as his buddies surged forward to press the engagement — and ran into a wall of ordnance from the other Battle Armor units.

The heavy hitter of the Infantry forces was the newest addition to the Mendel forces — the Revenant Siege Battle Armor. Kin to the Kanazuchi of Draconis Combine fame, it shared a similar squat and fat torso and a lack of jump jets, but upped the ante in terms of firepower with an Ion Cannon and a pair of four-silo SRM launchers, each missile launcher equipped with four salvos of missiles. A single point of Revenant could theoretically take out a platoon of Earth Alliance Linear Tanks in close quarters and have ammo to spare, they were so heavily armed.

It was the Revenants that sucked in the enemy machines, but the battle was programmed to allow the Minutemen Battle Armors to count coup. The Minutemen had concealed themselves in a prepared position to begin with, in an area that was perfect for a close-quarters ambush, and the enemy had obliged by dropping in immediately in front of the Minutemen. Once the second Go-code was ordered, they sprang into action and charged the gap between MS and Infantry.

-x-

Naturally, finding themselves in a bad situation, the MS pilots jolted. "MS Star, fall back and re-engage from 300 meters back! Ignore the heavies, they can't catch us!" the Star Commander of the OpFor misjudged.

"On it!" the pilots began trudging backwards as they fired training-strength beams and machine cannons at the approaching Minutemen. The shooting was made all the more difficult by the size of the Battle Armors — they were only a little bit larger than the average soldier, and Mobile Suits were not engineered to do anti-infantry work as were APCs or IFVs. One pilot got lucky and tapped a Minuteman with a beam rifle, a shot that hit the arm of the trooper. The left arm on that unit went limp, but the Infantryman continued firing his or her Support PPC at the MS. "What the hell? It's still shooting!"

"They can take peripheral hits and keep fighting!" the Star Commander shouted. "Keep shooting them!"

The rearmost MS walked itself backwards into the edge of the minefield, and promptly popped a pair of anti-armor mines under the foot of her MS. Suddenly simulated to be bereft of a foot, the MS lost its balance and fell backwards, in the process setting off a half-dozen more mines on impact and crippling her MS. "Damnit! Minefield! Don't come back here!"

"What? Mines? Where did they come from? They can't have FASCAM (3) weapons!"

"Sappers! I have Sapper Battle Armors to my left!" the downed MS pilot shouted. "Oh shit!" she shouted before the Support PPCs started striking her downed machine. "I'm under direct fire!"

"Damnit! We stumbled into an ambush of no small proportion!" the Star Commander shouted angrily at his viewscreen. "I'll have your asses for lunch!" his Strike Dagger laid down several beam shots, with only one striking a Revenant Battle Armor and it did not stop the enemy with the hit.

"Sir! Enemies from behind! I don't recognize them!" his right flank officer shouted. The PPC hits from this new interloper only added to the chaos, with PPCs in every direction now except straight up or straight down — and the enemy Minutemen were threatening to get in under his balls to rectify one of those directions.

"This is bullshit! Now I know why the Inner Sphere hated these infernal Battle Armor troops!" He took the liberty of physically kicking one of the Minutemen Battle Armor, which was against the rules for this training exercise but a valid tactic for combatting the enemy troops in real combat. The kicked enemy armor flew lazily for forty meters before it slammed into a tree and spun to an odious landing on the forest floor below.

"What the hell?" someone shouted on the open frequency. "Real melee attacks are forbidden! What the fuck is your problem, pilot?"

"All forces, cease combat immediately, training violation!" Training Command ordered immediately. "Star Commander Nicholas, explain yourself at once!"

Nicholas cleared his throat before he depressed the radio switch. "Star Colonel, I reacted before I thought my action through. My intent was not to harm, sir!"

"You damn well better hope you did no harm to the trooper you just punted, Star Commander, or it will be your ass in the Trial of Grievance for it!"

"Oh shit," Nicholas groused with his finger off the radio switch. The last thing he wanted to do was face the Battle Armor troops for real, even in a Mobile Suit.

-x-x-x-

(5 January CE 73, 1300 Hours Lima (Local) time)  
>(USSA Military Headquarters, Manaus, Brazil)<p>

"Well, we won the bid, and for a damn skimpy price at that," Rico noted to his direct commander, Edward Harrelson. "Rights to build the Southern Cross MBT under license in Mendel? Sold!" The Quin Mantha pilot brought his hand down on the conference table with a loud, slapping sound that echoed around the room.

"And this is where we need to get creative, because the President has ordered us to make it a stalwart Warship capable of slagging down Earth Alliance naval forces." Ed noted. "The name of the game right now is _Garm_-class Frigates, and Mendel has given us full release to design our wet-dream ship. All we have to do is pony up payment for it, and we have a ready port-of-call in Mendel until we get on our feet up in space."

"Does this mean we're going forward with the _Nelson_-class ship refits?" Captain Jane Houston asked after a moment of silence in the room.

"Yes, it does. Mendel has agreed to refit those ships with appropriate engines and navigation systems to keep pace with our _Garm_-class ship, so the first thing we need to determine is how fast we go with it," Ed said.

"So, how much for how much on engines?" Rico asked.

Ed wrote a figure of 100,353 on the whiteboard in the room. "This figure is our base material budget, assuming we go the default design route and start from the base armed freighter version, which could easily scrap a _Nelson_ on its own and still carry that much tonnage in freight home. Physical space is not likely to be a constraint — the ship will be 600 meters long, a helluva lot bigger than the _Archangel_ for all it masses a hundred grand less."

"Okay, and if we need to worry about engines, what will they cost us in space and price?"

"Engines are installed in groups of two, and each group confers one-half a gravity worth of acceleration. Mass will be 14,954 per engine set, with a cost of 32 million c-bills give or take. This number already factors in 4 sets, or 2 G continual acceleration with no hazard to the ship. We can get 3 G maximum burn if we need to haul ass — nothing in the EA can match that, rest assured."

"Nice speed," Rico said. "I don't see any need to change that."

"Nope," Jane agreed.

"I was thinking maybe drop it down to 1.5 / 2.5, but 2 / 3 grav is good if we need to run away," Ed said. "No change there." He wrote down the engine details.

"Okay, what's next on the list?" Jane asked, scratching at a blemish on the table.

"Structure and armor. The more structure we give it, the more armor we can mount and the more abuse it takes to kill it."

"Okay, what's the default look like?"

"If we go with an 80U structure, the maximum armor we can mount is 400 tons of Ferro-Carbide. That'll give us resistance to anything short of a positron cannon, but not for long. Structure is added in five unit increments for the class, and each five units gives us another 25 tons of armor space. Each set of structure upgrade is 1250 tons."

"Okay, what do we lose if we give it a hard shell?" Rico asked. "I'm not much inclined to see this thing get sunk, or worse, read about it in the papers."

"We lose mostly tonnage to put weapons and other goodies in it," Ed said. "I do agree with you, I don't want to see a ship go down, especially not our own."

"Okay, give it another 20 units of structure and 100 tons of armor, would that help?" Jane thought aloud.

"Should, if I'm reading the conversion notes right, should give us another hit or two from common beam cannons," Ed noted while looking at the note page for the modifications possible.

"Works for me, unless you think we should go heavier?" Jane asked Rico.

"I think 125 units structure and 625 tons armor, make above-average difficulty to kill," Rico said.

"Works for me," Ed acknowledged. After some quick typing on a calculator, he came out with the new available tonnage figure of 80,852. "Okay, default fuel bunker is 8000 tons fuel, which is enough to keep the ship underway at 1G burn for 202 days. Or, if we run our Mobile Suits off that bunker as well, we could probably get 4, maybe 5 months on a common routine. You see any need to change that?"

"Hell no, five months between refuelings is a lot better than most wet-navy ships," Rico said in shock.

"Okay, we'll leave that as is. Now, before we continue, this is where the engineers advise we determine what we want to do — heavy on guns, balanced between guns and carrier, or heavy on carrier and light on guns."

"Can't do both?" Jane Huston asked plaintively.

"Not on our tonnage budget," Ed said. "If we are going to do carried assets, we will need the suits, the launch facilities, and roughly 250 tons of cargo per unit. So, assuming a modest complement of 20 units, you're talking the launch and hangar facilities for those units plus 5000 tons of cargo."

"And the hangar and launch facilities?" Rico asked.

"150 tons per unit, standard, which will include the MS, crew and maintenance facilities, and launch bays."

"On twenty, that would be 3000 for the MS and 5000 for supporting cargo, 8000 tons total," Jane did the math in her head. "That would bring us down to 72 - 8 and change."

"Then again, we don't really have a lot of MS to deploy to the ship right now, especially with our MS factory having been blown half to hell not too long ago," Rico said with clear acid in voice.

"Okay, we'll do that, 20 MS and necessary support," Jane snap-decided. "Should be enough, if we train our pilots right and don't get in over our ass."

"Also, small craft bays, keep or dump?" Ed went down the list to the next point, given that Rico and Jane had decided on a middle-of-the-road ship.

"Keep, definitely. We buy a shuttle off Mendel for delivering Marines to other ships, so we can capture them!" Rico whooped.

"I think you are grossly oversimplifying it," Jane Huston commented dryly. "I concur. Keep the shuttles."

"Okay, do we want to carry general cargo above and beyond the cargo for the MS, or do we want to rely on _Kamui_-class ships for that? We can carry 4 ships total."

"Both," Rico said. "I'd say give it another 5K of general cargo, and we'll supplement with the _Kamui_ ships."

"They are cute little things," Jane admitted.

"Okay," Ed wrote down their suggestion and deducted another 5K from the tonnage figure, giving him a standing total of 68,851. "One last structural thing. Do we want it rigged for towing, or do we rely on Mendel to do that for us?"

That question had Rico's curiosity. "How much would it cost us?"

"Roughly a third of what we have left," Ed said after he checked the notes and looked at the floor figure.

"No way in hell," Rico answered immediately. "I want some bigass guns at the end of the day."

"Not surprising," Jane Huston commented drolly.

"Okay, well, now onto Rico's favorite part, the guns. Time for us to make some noise."

"Now it gets real interesting, mwa ha ha," Rico did his best impression of an evil mastermind.

"If he gets frisky, pops a boner or tries to shanghai the meeting, I shoot him," Jane declared with a clear tone of worry about Rico's shift in demeanor.

"Help me, please help me," Edward asked the ceiling and any divinities in that general direction.

Though no divinities were in the area to heed his call, it would turn out that he needed Rico's help more than anything in the coming months. After all, the ship they designed would be called upon to serve in space and in the suborbital reaches, and Rico had been the closest thing the USSA had to a naval fanboy for Mendel's ships...

-x-x-x-

(11 January CE 73, 2330 Hours UTC)  
>(LaGrange Point 1, Asgard Shipyard Station Build Site)<p>

"Bring it coreward slow, slow, slow," Rita Daniels ordered over the general operations band. "Three, One, how does it look to you?"

"Three reporting, needs to come my directions 2.25 meters," another of the pilots on the frequency ordered.

"Starhounds 5, 8, 10 and 12, burn your jets for two seconds, then I want Starhounds 3, 6, and 11 to burn for three seconds. Execute on my mark only," Rita ordered.

"Sierra 5, ready op;" "8, good to go;" "10, standing by;" "12, ready," the four requested pilots declared. 3, 6 and 11 acknowledged seconds later, since they had to shift around to make sure the component was not thrown out of orbital balance.

"Execute now, now, now!" Rita half-shouted. On the third execute, the seven ordered units made their moves — first the four pushers, then the three catchers. What resulted was a jolt of movement in their direction roughly a meter, then an incomplete stopping action that caused the plate to slowly drift toward the rest of the superstructure at a rate of a few centimeters a minute. "Starhounds on the drifting exterior, arrange for full point and half-second burn on my mark." Rita waited a minute for the drift to bring it almost to parallel. "Execute now, now, now!" With the last half-second burn, the module stopped in place effectively less than half a centimeter from where it needed to be. "Close enough for manhandling. Engineers, you get to do the fine-tuning."

"Another sierra-rank (4) performance from the Daniels girl! No wonder the bosses decided to make you a foreman," one of the engineers declared. "Okay, I'll take it from here, get ready to begin welding."

Mating the massive blocks of the Asgard station to the existing construction was no simple task — banging a new block off the rest of the station was a recipe for destabilizing the whole thing, given the auto-stabilization systems were not yet functional. It would be the end of the year before enough stationkeeping engines would be in place to be used and a further year beyond that before all the stabilization engines were in and working. It was not for a lack of trying, but a lack of resources to build the blocks that the project was behind schedule.

In terms of geopolitics, the icy situation between the colonies and the land-bound parties was creating a delay impasse for these projects. Mendel and ZAFT were working their asses off trying to build the Asgard Shipyard Station, and thereafter would be working their asses off building Jumpships. The Emirate of Orb could wave a hand and double the manpower on the resource reclamation project; the Earth Alliance could literally triple the manpower with little to no impact on their Lunar bases. Neither faction, who had an otherwise material interest in the project, were lifting a finger to do a thing about it. The Junk Guild was helping clear salvage (now that there was money in it), and they were adding manpower to Asgard, but even that was miniscule given their work elsewhere throughout the Earth Sphere.

The actual Asgard workforce expected they would finish the station and begin construction of the first Jumpships, only to have the station 'appropriated' from them by the Earth Alliance (more than likely) or Orb (less than likely). What result this would have in starting a war, well, neither ZAFT or Mendel would settle for their blood, sweat and tears to be stolen by a bunch of lazy asshats, so a major fracas was likely in such an event.

The Starhound EVA Suits began working with their laser torches as soon as the alignment was finished. Set lower than the full 5 megawatt output, the laser torches were exemplary for welding together sheet steel in the inhospitable reaches of space. Mendel had developed the Starhound early, mostly to help with repairs to the colonies in the L4 area, though it did not take long for other interested parties to catch on to its utility. With the addition of a fourth colony in the coming months, the Starhound production was going full-bore to fill orders from Mendel, the Junk Guild, Orb and ZAFT.

"Looks like things are coming together just as we need them to," Rita said.

"It helps we're getting supplies from the asteroid belt now," the operations director said. "There's enough debris in the Debris Belt to do the job, but good luck policing it all up."

"Yeah, no doubt," Rita said. "Weld teams, make sure you double-kiss those seams! These blocks have to be gas-tight or I want to know why!" The design of the structure was such that two blocks would never adjoin at the same seam, so having an extra-thick seam (usually by way of welding a little extra mild steel in as a solder) was no big deal for the project. It was not like the linkages were going to rust, being out here in space, so...

"Yes, ma'am," a clearly older lady replied to the still-a-teenager Foreman Rita Daniels.

"Are we really going to finish this project before the shit hits the fan?" another welder asked.

"Hell no, the Earth Alliance is chewing through their leash right now. Six months and we'll be beating asses in Battle Armors, not welding this thing together," an older guy noted. Rita knew him as Starhound 10.

"What the hell are you talking about, man? Battle Armor?" a teenager Starhound pilot asked.

"Battle Armor, you know, the things these Starhound suits are based off? Mendel is cranking out a point a week right now, Handel Manufacturing being the biggest supplier. Not as scary as an Armored Marine, but they give you protection, and that is what counts. I wouldn't want to face a Minuteman in anything short of an Aerofighter, where it can't touch me. My son drives a Revenant, a siege battle armor with enough firepower to slag down a Linear Tank on its own. And that's one man, one machine, and when the shooting starts, I'm hanging up my Starhound and going battle line in whatever Mendel issues me."

"You crazy, man, you crazy," the same teen answered warily. "When the shooting starts, I'm headed for Copernicus. Fuck staying in the line of fire."

"What about you, Foreman?" the older lady in the Starhounds asked directly.

"I don't know yet," Rita said thoughtfully. "Might see if they have a spare MS to use, might not." Foreman Daniels instinctively looked out the right-side view monitor, towards Earth. She believed that the jump-start of trouble would be from there, if anywhere.

Little did she know, 100 miles to her left a certain cloaked ship was passing by her position, moving toward an operation and a rendezvous that would be endemic of the times to come.

-x-x-x-

(20 January CE 73, 1610 Hours UTC)  
>(Colony Cluster L4, Armory One PLANT, ZAFT National Training Center)<p>

A single ZAFT soldier led the way for three persons dressed in ZAFT technician jumpsuits, though in reality none of the four were ZAFT personnel. It was a flaw in the ZAFT security mechanisms that made their entry to the National Training Center possible, and a failure of the security personnel that allowed them to approach a certain hangar unmolested...

"This is it, peeps," the 'ZAFT' infantryman said. "Drop the duds, get your guns ready, and prepare to assault this hangar. Should be about a dozen inside."

"Roger that," Sting Oakley answered for the three. This was the hairiest part of the operation; if someone was to enter the secondary bay while the three were changing, it could blow the whole operation.

Thankfully, as the three stripped down their jumpsuits to their 'street clothes' (and in Stella's case, slipped on her midskirt after she pulled it from her deploy bag), nobody entered the assembly area. The next to come out of their bags was an impressive array of weapons: Sting hefted a pair of submachine guns, Auel a pair of pistols with forward-mounted extended magazines, and Stella drew a pistol and a short sword for the coming butchery.

"Ready? For the preservation of our blue and pure world," the infantryman said.

"Right," Auel responded sarcastically. He did not know why Neo had ordered him to do this, but orders were orders. Auel put the muzzle of his left pistol to the guy's head and pulled the trigger. The contact shot mostly muffled the concussion of the cartridge going off inside an enclosed space, but unbeknownst to them it had still caught the attention of a mechanic, who was now looking in the direction of the personnel bay.

"Do it," Sting ordered. As soon as he said so, Stella tripped the door button and darted forward into the hangar area.

To the right of the door, the curious mechanic saw the three persons exit the bay in rapid succession, saw the hardware, and he knew the shit was about to hit the fan at supersonic velocity. Without doing anything else, he brought a 3cm wrench down on the alarm breakplate on the nearby console, immediately tripping the base alarm system. A second later, four rounds from an intermediate-caliber submachine gun struck him in the chest and tore through his heart and lungs. What remained of his chest cavity would necessitate the replacement of the console behind him in weeks thereafter.

-x-

"DAMNIT!" Yzak Joule shouted. "Get everyone to their machines on the double! They're assaulting the Special Projects hangar!"

"Working on it, sir!" the NTC Personnel Operator shouts before he activates the base loudspeaker system. "Alert, all personnel! Enemy assault on Special Projects Hangar! Confirmed presence of infiltrators, casualties in the hangar! All available forces to Mobile Suits immediately!"

"Commander Joule, the enemy will not be on a suicide mission if they're capturing the new machines!" Shiho said from the cockpit of her CGUE DEEP Arms. "We need to look for a carrier or transport nearby the colony!"

"Or in Mendel space," one of the Operators said.

"Shove that one out an airlock, Operator," Yzak warned him in a clearly threatening tone of voice. "Mendel does not knife an ally in the back like this. It has to be someone else. Have the two patrol _Laurasia_ launch Mobile Suits and begin quartering searches for something using Mirage Colloid. Launch the other _Laurasias_ and two _Nazca_ class at first possible to join the search."

As the Operators began relaying his orders, Yzak weighed options. If the enemy was smart, they would snatch, cause as much damage as was expedient, and extract by any means necessary. Since he considered that so far he was dealing with smart enemies, that meant the enemy CIC would have deployed a warship as support, probably with an elite crew, to tangle with the ships outside and prevent them from interfering with the extract phase. "Yzak, Heine," the Special Forces operator called in. "Where do you want me?"

"Head out to the Nazcas and join the search for — "

"Commander Joule! Contact close aboard! 1 enemy warship just destroyed the _Juno_, point-blank beam cannon shots!"

"Well, there's our enemy ship," Yzak said in a droll monotone. He was expecting a flashy start from the enemy section, and so far they were not disappointing. "Status of our machines in the colony?"

"We have fourteen active and moving for the Special Projects Hangar."

"I am heading out as well. Have my machine pre-flighted right now!" Yzak was out the door before anyone could comment on his abrupt choice to shift to direct engagement instead of overall command.

-x-

"All systems are ready," Stella noted as her Variable Phase Shift kicked on and colored her machine black with red highlights.

"Remember, aim for the hangars, the more of their machines we drop without pilots, the less we have to fight," Sting said.

"I got it, I got it," Auel half-shouted in frustrated response. "You worry too much," Auel said before he raised the shoulder binders up and deployed the four 105mm cannons on the bottom of the binders. With a single tap, four shots were loosed into the bay door for the hangar, effectively removing 96 percent of the door and opening it to the colony at large. A second shot of the cannons did the same for the bay door across the ramp.

"I don't worry enough, especially when you are involved," Sting retorted sharply, though even as he said so his beam rifle was doing more talking, dropping training ZAKU machines one after the next in the hangar next door to theirs. "Split up! Cause as much damage as possible! We have five minutes before we have to evacuate!"

"I'm on it, I'm on it!" Auel said hurriedly. He broke left from the hangar door, toward the larger concentration of hangars. Sting jumped clear over the depopulated hangar in front of them, headed for the muster grounds where a counterattack was sure to begin. Stella broke right, heading for the industrial areas and the internal ship docks.

"Orders acknowledged," Stella said in a half-daze as her mind began ramping up to combat aggression and her personality lost its calm demeanor.

-x-

Captain Gladys had not expected such a bold assault as to engage ZAFT inside the Armory One PLANT by stealing their own prototype machines. Such conduct was borderline asinine in all traditional military analysis, given that Armory One had its own flotilla of ships, more than a Battalion of Mobile Suits, and was parked next door to the undisputed masters of naval warfare in the Earth Sphere. The whole concept was insane, let alone anyone actually try it.

In all reality, because such a strike was considered impossible, Talia knew now that it would succeed because ZAFT had taken precious few measures to guard against it. The aggressors would win inside the colony by default, the real battleground would be outside the colony.

"Malik, all screens, tactical overview naval forces in and around the colony," Talia ordered in the seconds after the captured Gundams departed their hangar and began tearing up the surrounding buildings or forces.

"On all screens, ma'am," Malik answered with a brief pause to input the necessary commands.

"Huh, the _Socrates_ is putting on heavy speed to approach the enemy ship," Talia noted. "What is exiting the harbor right now?"

"Should be the _Fermi_, ma'am," Meyrin Hawke answered before Malik could do so. "The _Galileo_ is already out of the harbor and on an intercept course. She'll be launching Mobile Suits in a minute."

"Time since the alarm?" Talia requested.

"Nine minutes, twenty seconds, ma'am," Malik answered. "Our Mobile Suits are engaging the Abyss and Chaos, Gaia appears to be assaulting industrial targets away from our forces!"

"Do we have any weapons available?" Talia requested after watching the opening strokes of the battle unfold.

"Fire Control has not been completed, Captain," Malik said in a frustrated tone. "We could hit all three of them with missiles from here, and we don't have any!"

"Enough, Malik, we lose this phase by default, it has to be a security lapse of some kind. Focus on coordinating our machines, Meyrin.

-x-

"Neo, we have no sign of the infiltrators. They may have failed," Captain Lee noted in a saddened tone. He hated sending men out to die, and especially hated sending out kids to die.

"Not just yet, Ian," Neo replied warily. "We programmed ten minutes to secure and activate the machines, followed by five minutes of romping and stomping, and then the escape and evade phase. We're not quite there. I'll take the field with Morgan, shake up their Mobile Suits. Move toward the harbor and sink shipping; when we make our escape, I want it to be a clean getaway."

"Understood, Commodore," Ian said by rote. He did not agree with doing so, but he knew it was the proper response on the assumption that the raiding team would make it out alive. "Helm, adjust course, move toward the harbor entrance at best possible speed. Operations, have the Exus Team pre-flighted and ready to go within the next five minutes."

"Exus Mobile Armors are ready to go now, only awaiting pilots," the Ops Officer answered after a quick check of his status panels.

"Operations, affirmative. Sensors, make sure you keep an eye out for Mendel Mobile Armors. So much as one pass can ruin this operation. Don't wait for me if one comes into view, issue engagement profile immediately," Captain Lee ordered as the ship began moving toward the harbor.

"Conn, Weapons, I have solid lock on the _Laurasia_-class ship approaching from starboard."

"Weps, Conn, drop 'em hard," Ian Lee watched on the viewscreen as his gun sets trained in on the ship in question. One Gottfried turret missed, a second did not, and several anti-shipping missiles only added to the nightmare on that ship. By the time the last missile impacted, she was dead in the water and no further threat to the Girty Lue.

"Conn, Ops, I show Exus team is ready to launch."

"Launch at will," the Captain ordered.

-x-

Stella's choice to assault the industrial zones instead of drawing fire in the NTC area had turned out to be prescient. Literally in the shadow of the incomplete warship _Minerva_, she had found an easy escape route that did not involve trying to blow a hole in the side of the PLANT walls. With only moderate resistance in the base, Sting and Auel had managed to drop the few active Mobile Suits and force the remainder into retreat. There was something to be said for the power of a Gundam, and Auel was singing its praises by the time he rendered the Duel incapacitated.

"Hey, over here!" Stella waved her beam rifle into the sky briefly, enough to draw the attention of the Chaos and Abyss.

"Found us a way out?" Sting asked.

"Yes, airlock set for incoming or outgoing dropshuttles," Stella noted. She kicked a Dropshuttle off the airlock platform to render easy access for the other machines.

"I hear you," Sting said. "What about the ship?"

"The guns for it are lined up in a row next to it. She can't fire on us."

"Well, do some damage to the ship and let's get the hell out of here!" Auel shouted before he turned his beam cannons on the front of the moored and incomplete _Minerva_. Sting did the same, though was a little more wary to conserve power.

Stella took an action that would forever mark her in infamy among ZAFT forces. Rather than simply fire on the ship, she decided to draw her beam saber and cause some petty vandalism. It took her a couple minutes to achieve her goal, but Sting and Auel would need that much time to breach the airlocks and secure a way out.

It would be Auel that put voice to her beam saber graffiti. " 'Stella was here, 20 Jan '73. Kilroy can kiss my ass!' " he read off the side of the _Minerva_ after she finished carving a bunny head into the hull plates next to her expression. "Well, they'll definitely know we bent them over and screwed 'em on this one."

"Hope they have a sense of humor," Sting noted. "Okay, we're through. Come on before the emergency doors seal it!"

-x-

"Chevalier to Lee, I have three contacts coming out of the Colony, looks like the new models," the old Colonel declared. "I've already swept them a path clear, so we should be good to go right now."

"Chevalier, good copy," the Operator responded. "Make sure their active ships are crippled and escort the package back to the ship."

"Chevalier, Neo, take up the escort. I'll finish up the last two enemy machines." A couple ZAKU machines with above-average pilots had been harassing him since the beginning of the battle, but it was a paltry affair for Commodore Neo Roanoke to work around them at the time. Now that these last two veterans were all that remained of the harbor defenses, Neo turned his guns in on them.

"Roger that, Commodore," Morgan answered curtly. "Captain Lee, looks like we're just about done here."

"Aye, Morgan. Commodore Roanoke, the Girty Lue is making preparations to depart the theater. Do you have other intentions?"

"Fire two salvos of missiles into the Armory One Harbor to disorient and damage any pursuers, then make preparations for Mirage Colloid. I will be returning to the ship shortly."

"Attention all forces, Phantom Pain formation, Operations reports successful recovery all three prototypes in undamaged or minor-damage status," the Operator announced seconds after Neo finished off the last ZAKU Phantom — a white-painted machine, oddly enough.

"We're done here. Let's head for the hills, people!"

-x-x-x-

(24 January CE 73, 0105 Hours UTC)  
>(Debris Belt Shoal Zone, nearby Junius Seven Graveyard)<p>

Captain Ian Lee considered that when Voltaire had said, "God, grant me a ridiculous enemy," he never expected it to be reality. Still and all, ZAFT had begun their pursuit phase by way of heading for L1 and the Asgard Project, not by following them toward the Debris Belt. Calling that ridiculous — following the grossly obvious pursuit path — was only proper, in his estimate. The _Girty Lue_ had escaped clean, and even merchant traffic was sparse along the planned escape route, so there was no hope of being caught.

The big unknown in the operation had been Mendel's reaction to the incident, but a complete lack of reaction from the juggernaut had turned out to be a surprising end-game for Mendel. Only one small craft had been witnessed leaving Mendel airspace as the Girty Lue was departing, and that was what appeared to be a dropshuttle of some kind (with the Mirage Colloid active, the Girty Lue had to be close to tell what a unit was) and that craft had booked hard for Asgard, making it a non-issue. If so much as one of Mendel's heavy-gun destroyers had picked up their scent, the _Girty Lue_ would have been flying a different flag before midnight on the 21st.

So, four days later, no response, no search, nothing except the looming figure of Junius Seven and a shit-ton of debris to snake their way through on the way back to the moon.

"Conn, sensors, I show debris field markers dead ahead, estimated time to arrival is 3-0 minutes at present heading and speed," the sensor officer noted.

"Helm, bring her about twenty degrees to starboard and put on a hint of speed. Once we pass the debris field markers, drop the Mirage Colloid."

"Aye, sir," the Helmsman said. "I show a colony hull plate to port, no drift, everything else in the area is minor or easily dodged."

Captain Lee looked over all the consoles and readouts of his ship, then picked up his crossword and resumed bending his mind around the arcane words often used in it. He was nowhere near as good as Neo Roanoke at the blasted things, but he could complete a crossword if given enough time. Thankfully, the Reconstruction Wars had not destroyed all the pencil factories on planet, so his hobby — and his sanity — was safe.

Even while their commander was screwing off at the Conn, the rest of the bridge staff was still doing their jobs — including the naval lookouts at the bridge windows. "Erm, Tony, does that look like something?" the port-side lookout asked the central lookout.

"What?" Tony answered crassly.

"The colony hull plate, look in the light shadow," and the lookout pointed.

"Wha — " he began to question her again, but froze instinctively. He recognized that something was there, and that he subconsciously knew what it was, but his forethoughts could not tell what it was. The schism between conscious and subconscious caused him to freeze for several seconds, a precious several seconds that could have changed the outcome. "It is something," he said finally. "Sensors, behind the — " before he could finish the sentence, the object began moving, and in so doing the Sensors panel picked it up immediately.

"Conn, sensors, contact close aboard! Interplanetary engines detected, port side low!"

"Shit!" the port-side lookout shouted. "Captain, it's the _Dominion_! The _Dominion_ is close aboard!"

"What?" Lee shouted needlessly. "Weapons — "

"Brace for impact!" the lookout slammed the collision warning button at her station a mere second before the ship was struck amidships by two massively-jarring impacts. "Valiants! Those things — we've got holes in our ship!" the lookout could see where the slugs had entered the hull and mushroomed out another section of the hull plate.

"They know we're here! Drop Mirage Colloid, full sensors, ready all weapons!" Lee ordered over the growing panic caused by the ambush.

"Enemy is launching Mobile Suits! Confirm Calamity, Heavyarms in flight right now!" the Sensors operator shouted.

"Launch our machines! Daggers first!"

"Captain! Another contact from Starboard! It's — oh my God, it's a white Neue Ziel!"

-x-

"Damn good timing, Soritz, caught them with their flies unzipped and a jar of KY handy," Gerald Lightbringer said with a rueful chuckle. "Remember, this is a new model Warship, and they have three new model machines. I want them taken alive, intact if possible. Isorla to the man that makes it reality!"

"I hear ya, boss-man," Oruga replied heartily. "I'll just shoot off her beam cannon turrets, make sure she can't shoot up my ride home."

At the distance the engagement had started at, Oruga's statement of intent was grossly easy to complete. He had a direct angle to the number 6 turret immediately, and all he had to do was aim the paired Schlag beam cannons at it for an easy shot. Three beams from each and the cannons began smoking while the turret itself started lazily rotating full circle.

"Save some more me, sibko brat," Gundam Pilot Argus Deville said testily. His was a ballistic arsenal and slightly lower caliber than Oruga's, so he had to hammer on the number five turret for several seconds with all eight gatlings before he had a result. The turret in question simply cooked off, sparking and sizzling to the point of red hot armor plate by the time it was done.

"Pikers, the lot of you," Gerald said crassly. "I've got the missile block on the dorsal surface. You guys get in and smash the rest of those turrets and any CIWS systems on it!"

"Yes, sir!" Shani acknowledged the change in mission profile, though he considered it a step down from the initial battle plan. He was supposed to engage the new models, though chopping up a Warship was also a lofty goal...

Gerald passed over the top of the ship without harassment; he was flying too fast to be challenged by their guns, but not fast enough to miss a shot against the new ship. Before he passed over the deck, he loosed two salvos of five rounds from each of his 105mm autocannons — eight salvos total, not an insignificant amount of ordinance. This was made all that much more worse by his choice of ammunition, in that the Phase Shift Penetrators were not stopped by the armor, missile silos, structure members, ship's crew or cargo bays in between the top and the bottom of the ship. With 800 kilograms of expended ordinance, Gerald had destroyed all but four of the VLS missile silos and rendered all the ready reloads for the missiles unusable. Just like that, the main anti-MS weapon system on the Girty Lue was out of action.

"I think I'll like this boss battle," Clotho said as his machine ejected clear of the _Dominion_. He had multiple of the new Dagger models to play with already, and more were in the hangar to shoot at his leisure.

"Don't get slap-happy, Clotho," Gundam Pilot Alicia Yamato ordered of him. "Capture as many as possible, it is hard to interrogate a dead guy."

-x-

If anything, Ian Lee knew his career had just ended. Surviving this battle was also looking dicey, given that the Mendel forces had offered no parley. It did not fit their profile, but by the same token a complete lack of response to an ally getting corncobbed also did not fit their profile. Something was not adding up, in Ian's analysis of the evolving battle.

"Helm, reverse course, full burn, take us away from the _Dominion_ at best possible speed. When we clear the debris field, reactivate Mirage Colloid. Operations, launch the Sleepers, it's our only hope right now to escape alive!"

"Sir! Forbidden on the front deck!" Much as the lookout had declared, the Forbidden had landed directly behind the number 1 Gottfried turret and proceeded to remove it completely from the ship. A second later, the first of the captured machines had launched from the hangar deck, followed two seconds later by the catapult ejecting the Chaos behind the Abyss. Gaia departed the port-side hangar deck under its own power, ostensibly to engage the Forbidden without having to reverse course.

"Order the Gaia to engage and drive away the Forbidden!"

As his order package went out, Stella had taken it upon herself to do just that. She had managed to drive the Forbidden away immediately, but the pilot — Shani Andras — was not a pilot to take being assaulted lightly. His scythe went into overdrive and he started firing on her with machine cannons, rail guns and the plasma cannon that made his unit frighteningly effective in the Second Battle of Jachin Due. Stella, for all her inexperience with the Gaia, was able to hold off his furious counterattack and return a couple shots of her own.

While the bridge crew was distracted by Gaia versus Forbidden, they allowed themselves to forget that the bulk of the _Dominion_'s Mobile Suits were still gunning for them. They were reminded when two of the CIWS turrets were knocked offline by direct beam fire from a Dendrobium Stamen Gundam.

"Sir, we're losing our defensive measures! We're almost out of options here!"

"We still have two Gottfrieds — " the weapons officer was cut short by the destruction of the number three turret. "I stand corrected."

"No, we don't," Ian Lee said gloomily as the Calamity came up from the hangar deck and dropped a bazooka round into the top of the last remaining turret. "We're disarmed now. Looks like we just ran out of options."

"Now what?" the Sensors operator said. "Oh sh — "

Everyone on the bridge reacted away from the front window after the jarring impact of a rather famous Gundam on their front deck. Rather than simply aim a beam rifle in the window, the pilot went full bore and aimed the Twin Satellite Cannon at them — an altogether more horrifying prospect, even if the little beam rifles it carried would have been overkill of their own right.

"Attention Earth Alliance unidentified Warship, this is Gundam Pilot Alicia Yamato, Mendel Warship _Dominion_. You are hereby ordered to stand down all Mobile Forces and surrender your ship, or face the consequences of your piracy."

-x-

"Gerald, Alicia, enemy ship has surrendered! We've won!"

Four beams bounced off his I-Field from behind. "I think the Gundams they captured think otherwise. Shani, can you take the black one?"

"Aff, sir, I have her wrapped up, can you deal with the other two?"

"I have an idea," Gerald said as he reversed his orientation so he was flying backwards and upside-down relative to his enemies. The green and blue machines were close-in on him, though they had not yet figured out that his machine was resistant to beam fire courtesy of the I-Field systems on it.

"Clotho, hammer her from behind!" Shani shouted.

"Game over, bitch," Gerald briefly saw Clotho's thoughts as he directed the spherical breaker into the back of her machine. It would not penetrate the likely-phase-shift armor it had, but the impact was enough to disrupt and distract, and that was all they needed.

"I have your asses right where I want them," Gerald said over an open frequency to the trailing pilots. "Come and get me, if you dare."

"I SO want your head for a trophy, you crotchety old bastard!" one of the two enemies shouted in response.

"_Molon Labe_, come and take it, boy," Gerald taunted the far-junior pilot.

"Auel, no!" the green machine tried reaching for the blue one, but it was a futile gesture.

"Your ass is mine!" Auel shouted as he closed, beam halberd set to impale. After the blue machine passed a predetermined point in pace, Gerald launched both arms from his machine at the same time he began a Newtype Illusion — the same illusion he used on Kira Yamato in years past.

"I am the Archangel of Solace, boy!"

"What the fuck is this?" Auel shouted, now panicking because of the six massive angel wings he was seeing in front of him, never realizing that it was an illusion and Gerald was deliberately heightening his sense of panic with his newtype skillset.

"I am bound forever to those who do not want to go quietly into the night!" Gerald continued as the Angel stretched its wings and slowed to nothing. Auel, stricken by raw fear, never saw the arm that captured his machine, nor did Sting see the second arm capture him seconds later. "You will learn to fear that which you have never understood, for I am the reaper commissioned to never rest until the war Ragnarok is won," Gerald said by way of both radio and telepathic broadcast, meaning that nobody within a thousand kilometers of his position could escape seeing and hearing the illusion.

For Auel, Sting, and Stella, it would be the illusion that frightened them into inaction. Gerald had planned on smashing their Gundams together, but they stopped resisting before it had to come to that. The three pilots would not challenge a supernatural being that could easily do all manner of unspeakable things to them, or so their imaginations told the rest of their minds. In all reality, Gerald could do no such things to they, but he was not about to spare them their illusions on the matter.

-x-x-x-

(7 June 2SL-12, 1100 hours)  
>(<em>Freightliner<em>-class Dropship_ FHE-10607_)  
>(Planet Tharkad, Multimage Dimension A-1011)<br>(6 days after the attack on the _Mjolnir_)

"All right, Danny, ease her forward slow...forward slow...hold!" the loadmaster for Bay C-5 ordered. "Set her down real easy."

"Gotcha," the cargo frame operator said. Five seconds later, the two tons of palletized network servers touched down in the cargo bay. "Easy enough for you, old maid?"

"Call me an old maid again, I dare ya," the loadmaster replied evenly. "We have one shot to do this right, kid. Where we go, there ain't no resupply if these things take damage."

"Wait, what?" the cargoframe operator asked. "Whaddya mean, no resupply?"

"I mean this is a black operation, kid," the loadmaster answered. "It's a one-way trip somewhere without the opportunity for contact back to corporate HQ. Once we dive through the rabbit hole we're headed toward, someone's gonna fire off a cratering charge behind us and seal the hole up. No way in, no way out."

"Holy shit, old maid, no wonder they're paying double haz for this op," someone else commented on the C-5 radio frequency. "I'll have to see if my girlfriend wants to play some Alice-through-the-looking-glass, or if I need to plan on finding a new girlfriend when I get there."

"Can I watch?" Daniel asked of the obvious lady that had dropped the prior comment.

"What is it with guys always wanting to watch?" she asked in counter. "We girls don't always want to watch two guys going at it."

"Freud was right," the loadmaster settled the debate. "Load command, Charlie Five reporting server package Queen-Golf-zero-five-nine in place, deckhands are securing now."

"Roger that, Charlie Five," the load command section answered. "And keep the innuendo to a minimum, we're on a tight schedule here. Heaven and Earth have already been moved to make this op work, we don't have the option to move more Heaven or Earth to keep it working."

"Ten-four, command," the loadmaster closed his report. "And who's our next victim on the Charlie Five radio show?"

"That would be me," a young lady said on the same frequency. As she said, a heavily-modified Axeman began trudging up the load bay ramp. "And before you ask, no, I'm not saying what I intend to do from a relationship standpoint."

"No fun, that," the Loadmaster replied. "Hey, isn't that one of the CRM test-type Axemen you're driving?"

"It is," she replied as a marshaller directed her to where her 'mech would be anchored. The Dropship was not set up for 'mech transport, so she would be stowed in as standard cargo and would be offloaded when they arrived at destination. "LRM 20 rack on the left, CRM 12 on the right with extra heat sinks for good measure."

"Ouch, that's some serious ass-whoopin," Daniel noted. Many in the military analysis networks had derided the CRM as a giant step _backwards_ from the already-primitive SRM systems, but that was exactly what Hessian Weapons Systems wanted when they designed it. CRM, standing for** C**lose-**R**ange** M**issile, was intended as a Battlemech's answer to the Beam Saber of Mobile Suit fame. With only two thirds the range of the SRM, it could not reach out and touch targets at range, but the size of the launcher (up to 12 missiles per salvo), with each missile being twice as powerful as an equivalent SRM, meant it was perfect for slagging down a Mobile Suit foolish enough to get close to a properly-armed Battlemech. Testing had been conducted against everything up to a RX-78-G Mass production type with phenomenal success inside 400 meters, typically considered the range at which most Battlemech-on-MS engagements went to the MS by default (superior close-quarters engagement profile on the MS).

The major problem with the launchers were the high heat per salvo and (in an inversion of normal Battlemech woes) the high ammo per ton count. A ton of ammo for the CRM 12 block came out to 12 salvos, or 144 missiles total per ton, which if detonated inside the machine was easily capable of slagging the heaviest 'mechs down to spare parts; smaller launchers of CRM had conversely higher salvo totals, to the point that a CRM 3 launcher with one ton of ammo could be fired once every five seconds for over four minutes and still have ammo to spare.

"You boys hear that we're also moving the Quantum Physics projects out with us?" the mechwarrior asked as she began setting her actuators and control systems into 'transport mode', which helped the technicians in securing and (occasionally) moving it around inside the bay.

"No way, that's Hessian's big cash cow for the next few decades, why bring it along with us into the black hole?" the loadmaster asked.

"Well, I heard from scuttlebutt from on high that where we're headed already has one of the major Q's down pat: quantum computing has already made it into naval warfare in our target dimension. If that's right, QOM and QEM should only take years to master instead of decades or centuries."

"Man, I'm liking this trip more and more with each passing minute," the loadmaster said. "Command, Charlie Five reporting ingress one battlemech, classified Alpha-xray-mike-dash-two-charlie-dash-charlie-rome o-mike is loaded, show position as charlie-five-dash-three-delta to six-foxtrot."

"Command copies your last, Charlie Five. Continue as normal."

"That's no shit, right?" Daniel asked. "If we master QEM and mix it with our mastery of antimatter production, we could power entire planets for eons with little more effort than the first morning piss on an average workday." One of the other production groups that was loading up on the far side of this very planet was the Antimatter Research and Production Group, who would set up shop (carefully) on the moon when they arrived at the destination.

"Deeper than that, cargo-trucker," the mechwarrior said as she began the climb down from the cockpit of her Axeman. "QEM plus antimatter plus theoretical jump technologies can, in theory, surpass common Gate Mages in distance traveled per jump. It takes a Transcendent Gate Mage to go from Terra to the far side of our own Galaxy, and a second-order Transcendent to go from the far edge of our Galaxy to the next nearest galaxy. How would you like to see that done with technology?" Both the Loadmaster and the cargo-frame pilot were staring at the Mechwarrior with mouth agape. "Better close those hatches, boys, or a fly'll come in for a landing." She kept walking, intent to find her quarters before the ship really began filling up with incoming personnel.

"Damn, we're sending a whole slice of everything to this new land, commercial, military, industrial, research and development, and now I know why," the Loadmaster said.

"Now we know why. We got the best chance to do it right where we're going. Question is, what exactly are we going to be doing there when we get there?" It was the million-C-bill question that no man in the operations had any idea what the answer was supposed to be.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Chapter Afterword<strong>:

I am turning chapters at a very brisk clip of late, and so far it is going very well on my end. Google docs is a lifesaver in that regard!

Well, if you've read this far, you know that the fun is really beginning for Mendel now. The Earth Alliance hammered out a good oplan for the assault on Armory One, and even in their strategy they did better this time than they did against ZAFT in the canon Destiny storyline. No Shinn to harass the assault team, less ZAFT Mobile Suits in deploy, and no interference from Mendel in their initial assault and extract. One could call that a picturesque oplan and get away with it.

The problem the Earth Alliance allowed themselves to lapse on was not so much operational as it was strategic. As long as ZAFT did not ask for assistance, Mendel is honor-bound to do nothing. It would have been a simple task for a pair of Dendrobium Mobile Armors to swing by and ruin the Girty Lue as a usable warship platform, but without a request Mendel could do nothing. So, no request, no dice, but once the engagement is cleared the rulebook changes. For Mendel, once the Girty Lue broke contact and showed no evidence of being interdicted, they became fair game for assault at the leisure of available forces. More to the point, an undeclared assault such as the Girty Lue ran against ZAFT puts them out of the running for Zellbrigen, the code of conduct that a Clan or Magi warrior must follow when conducting battle against an honorable foe. In this, once Zellbrigen was suspended Gerald could hammer them flat however he wanted.

The other major point of the story is the advancing tide of powers that are not Earth Alliance signatories. Everyone is pushing forward at their own pace, unrestrained by the Earth Alliance and their control by fear. This alone is enough of a precondition for war; remember, in Destiny, Djibril deliberately declared that he is a control freak and wants to make sure that he is the gardener and sole purveyor in this vegetable patch. With that attitude translating over to the nightmare he now lives, some societies are not going to take kindly to his attempts at 'pulling weeds'. And, with now the USSA getting in on the space naval dominance race, the Earth Alliance effectively has no option for control outside the atmosphere. Once they realize that cold, hard fact, things will get messy; when you take control away from a bully, their first instinctive reaction is to attempt to force the issue in their favor, even if that reaction is suicidal by all normal measures of the word.

There are a few interesting points in the minor category, namely the Blue Cosmos ops and the AI project. Blue Cosmos is gearing up to do their usual thing in large quantity, and to what degree they will have successes, well, the next couple chapters will make that abundantly clear. Don't expect rainbows and unicorns for either the assaulters or the defenders, let's just put it that way and call it quits.

Of the two minor points, the AI project really is not minor. It has long and loud implications for everyone, as AI interfaces can be used for a lot of interesting things above and beyond what Mendel uses them for. Once that genie is out of the bottle, you can expect a lot of things to take off at warp speed, and a lot of it will be dependent on the core programming of the AI.

In terms of the story, any veterans of Destiny should know that I preempted the storyline in terms of exact order of events. Specifically, Break The World has not happened yet, because that did not happen until a bit later into CE 73, but things may happen still. _Minerva_ has not launched yet, mainly because it was still under construction. Veterans of my original story know that there were a few events in there as well that have not yet happened, so stay tuned for more.

**NEXT UP**: Blue Cosmos kicks their operations into high gear, but so does another shadow party...

* * *

><p><strong>Review Replies<strong>: Quite a few reviews for this past chapter. THANK YOU ALL FOR THE FEEDBACK

_Takeshi Yamato_: Looking forward to any OCs you throw my way, since they will be needed. Sorely need, actually, after Set 2.

_KleverKilva_: Oh yes, I intend to do an OrBat for the combined forces Mendel Protectorate once the new ship is in place.

_Akalon_: Your error trapping has been added to the original document and all that mess is sorted out. Thank you for the assist!

_Sieben Nightwing_: Well, Empress Rini Atrebas is an interesting case. A very interesting case. That said, she is also a very dutiful successor to the throne of the Empire, and tends to be very blunt about what has to happen at any given time. It's a family thing, all things considered.

I may bounce ideas off you in the future. Stand by for further!

_Deathzealot_: A damn good feeling to be back, comrade!

No, no Minerva-class ships in this one, but keep in mind those dry-docks can be leased out for more than just the Garm-class ships... and may go that way at a later time.

The USSA is not getting the shaft that they received in the series. There is a reason that the up-and-coming power players on planet are called the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China), and I see no reason why that can't translate to SEED. With the addition of the up-and-coming Garm-class ship to their fleet, expect to see the USSA take more of a role toward the end of this Set and in the next couple JW sets.

The Junk Guild is not through, not by a long shot. They will be getting some more traction later in this story, and your idea of armed defense units is not unreasonable to Mendel, but will definitely get the EA's panties in a bunch.

Well, next chapter is AAA, so stand by for further!

_OmegasGundam_: The original TROs still exist in my archives, so I will have to make them available

Also, thank you for the primer on the SLDF warship concepts. Wildly against anything in use by the Star Empires (including Mendel), so no hazard of such a repeat failure there.

_Necroblade_: Orb plans big, but keep in mind they have a poison pill in their midst. The Seiran group has a lot of ambition and not a lot of brainpower to pull it off. That can make for a very costly combination over the long run.

* * *

><p><strong>The Gripe Sheet<strong>:

No standing gripes that have not been corrected from the last chapter. As always, thank you to **Necroblade** and **Takeshi Yamato** for cleaning my prose up!

Also, much thanks to **Akalon** for pointing out some FUBAR generated by my voice-recognition software, which also led to me catching a different error elsewhere in the document.

* * *

><p><strong>Footnotes<strong>:

(1): **Jacket** in this use is referring to the personnel records of the persons involved. The Mendel / Magi / Clan equivalent is a **Codex**.

(!): Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you read that right. 1920 Extended Long Range Missiles, spread across 96 ELRM-20 Launchers (Magi Revised Pack System). Specs will be included in the TRO section below.

(2): **T**arget **A**cquisition **G**ear, a special spotting laser that allows a Mobile Army or Battle Armor point to direct artillery or guided weapons onto a target. Considered an essential piece of equipment for Magi in general warfare scenarios, it is far less common among Inner Sphere or Clan forces.

(3): **F**ield **A**rtillery **SCA**tterable **M**inefield

(4): **Sierra-rank** refers to achieving an S rank, which is a common designation for something above an A-grade performance.

(X): CAVEAT to the Garm-class merchantmen being unarmed: one or both shuttles can be replaced by up to 3 Mobile Suits per shuttle, depending on the size of the MS. Launching them becomes difficult, but not impossible.

* * *

><p><strong>TRO Section<strong>: TROs, or **T**echnical **R**ead**o**uts, are a detailed look at the design and history of a craft, shown in a form that can be used by a Battletech player to use them in their games. Since I do a lot of work with special equipment and custom weapons, I have also included custom rules for their use in Battletech. It can often be said that much of the popularity of Battetech (Classic Batteletech to anyone new to it) is the intricate, long history of the story, the game and the units that show up in it.

Clan AeroTech 2 Vessel Technical Readout

VALIDATED

Class/Model/Name: Garm-class Corvette (Stripped Variant)

Tech: Mixed Tech / 3067

Vessel Type: Monitor (WarShip Transportable)

Rules: Level 3, Standard design

Rules Set: AeroTech2

Mass: 250,000 tons

Length: 600 meters

Power Plant: Standard (C)

Safe Thrust: 2 (Variable)

Maximum Thrust: 3 (Variable)

Armor Type: Ferro-carbide

Armament: Variable

==Overview:==

In the months after the First Valentine War, a need was determined among the Mendel Protectorate forces to supply themselves and other allied parties with quality warship capable of doing battle with masses of smaller and less-capable Earth Alliance warships. This need was fulfilled by a smaller Monitor classification (Frigate) and a ship was designed around a core specification, creating the first known Omni-warship among any of the Star Empires or descendants.

A consortium was formed between ZAFT and Mendel to build the ships using ZAFT labor and Mendel expertise. Within months of the initial gear-up, the first ships were under construction and a turnout rate of roughly four ships every three months was established. Resource availability was an issue to begin with, though alleviated by asteroid mining courtesy of Mendel. With the first dedicated warship rolling off the dry-docks in CE 73, the class is destined for involvement in any conflict Mendel or ZAFT are headed for.

==Capabilities:==

The first and most critical thing about the class was the necessity that the ships could be constructed in modular sections, due to manufacture requirements from ZAFT. Mendel naval engineers from several aerospace consortiums and the structures engineers from the Phalanx-class Warship Mjolnr came to the conclusion that not only could it be done, but a ship thus built could be reconfigured using omni technology in the same fashion that omnifighters and omnimechs could be built.

This critical decision also created the first major design hurdle: nobody in known Existence had ever designed a warship that could be reconfigured in any fashion without major re-engineering work, and that included the parent Empire of Mendel. A young design prodigy of ZAFT came up with the idea of interlocking structural members assembled in a hexagonal cylinder running the length of the ship. This solved the problem at two levels, both in the structural design and spare parts categories. Additionally, options were made for increasing the amount of structural interlocks and columns inside the ship, which would allow the design to reinforce its structure if more armor and arsenal was required. The only permanent piece of structure in the ship is a single long structural member that connects the bridge and engineering area.

The second consideration was the bridge, which solved its own problem almost immediately. Rather than trying to create a ship bridge that was assembled modular, the bridge area was constructed as a single prefabricated unit and would be movable from hull configuration to another. By simplifying the bridge and engineering sections, things would go far easier in assembly and reconfiguration.

The Engines were built into their own nacelle systems consisting of an engine, the necessary fusion reactor to feed that engine, fuel pumps and heat dissipation equipment. The nacelles were designed to be mounted in pairs to provide ½ a gravity of thrust per pair to a fully-loaded ship. In this fashion, the paired engines would be mounted to the sides of the centerline of the ship, allowing them to be used to turn the ship with the assist of directional thruster motors in other parts of the ship's exoskeleton. If a ship needed more or less engine power, the addition or removal of nacelles would accomplish this.

Due to the completely open construction of the ship, it has no major weapon systems or facilities hard-mounted throughout the ship. These can be added to specification, along with cooling systems, ammunition bunkers, cargo bays, launch and recovery bays, or other facilities as desired. With a maximum length of 600 meters, a long list of materials could be added to the ship at the desire of the owner or contracting party.

Repair of the ship is a simple and field-expedient task, so long as the necessary materials are at hand. Armor and structure components are deliberately made modular, so if they are damaged the repairs are as simple as unlocking the damaged plates from their neighbors, slipping new components in place and interlocking them into the existing plates or structures. Components are similarly interlock-mounted to structures and armor, so replacing damaged hardware is a simple task of pulling the unusable component, putting a new one in place, and locking it down into position.

==Battle History:==

As this ship has not yet engaged in combat as of this writing, there is no known battle history for the ship classification.

==Variants:==

As of this briefing document, over fifteen proposed variants of the Garm-class ships exist on paper, though the following variants exist in service or under construction:

Stripped Cargo: Merchantman, in active service. Used for bulk freight hauling, capable of carrying 180,201 tons of cargo as well as 4 Dropships OR 1 Dropship and can mate to a Warship / Jumpship

Stripped Towing: Merchantman, in active service. Capable of towing vessels as well as bulk freight hauling. Cargo space for 155,101 tons, same Dropship capacities as the Stripped Cargo version.

Standard Freight: Armed Merchantman, in construction. Equipped with a solid spread of Naval PPCs, Naval Lasers, and Pulse Lasers. Room for 100,353 tons of cargo, same Dropship capacities.

Frontline Variant: Combatant Warship. Armed with the base standard freight arsenal, but adds Naval Autocannons, more Naval Lasers, LRMs and Laser AMS systems. Carries 30 fighters.

ZAFT Frontline Variant: Combatant Warship. Built on the base of the Standard Freight version, it adds 4 Tristan Dual Beam Cannons, 30 Multipurpose Missile Tubes, and 10 anti-beam depth charge launchers. Has bays for 10 Mobile Suits.

USSA Frontline Variant: Armed Combatant. Also built on the base weapons spread of the armed freighter, but increases weapons with Naval Autocannons, more Naval Lasers, and a spread of Multipurpose Missiles and Helldarts.

==Notable Vessels & Crews:==

No major vessel of this class has gained notoriety (or infamy) so far.

==Deployment==

As the Garm-class ship provides over 180,000 tons of cargo movement in the stripped Cargo version, and does not fall under any treaty obligations pertaining to warships, it is considered a sine qua non of bulk freight movement. At roughly the same cost as a 45,000 ton Dropship and with the capacity of five such ships, many freight corporations have made or plan to make these ships their centerpiece of long-range freight hauling.

Mendel operates the first two ships of the line, though both ships operate solely as merchantmen and do not have armaments (x). The first ship of the class, specifically a stripped cargo unit, hauls salvage from the Debris Belt to Mendel for reprocessing, with an expected revenue of 1,800,000 c-bills per revenue load (after processing at Mendel) at full capacity with an expectation of one revenue circuit per two weeks. As the Debris Belt is expected to take years to clear and process even with a growing fleet of the Garm-class ships, this is an extensive revenue haul from simple junk left over by the spacefaring groups from the planet below.

As of this writing (1 January CE 73), the first ships of the line that are combatants right out of the docks are under construction.

==BATTLETECH SPECIAL RULES==

A Garm-class may be converted or customized as seen necessary, up to the class maximum mass of 250,000 tons. Unlike Omnimechs and Omnifighters, all components on the ship may be customized.

Customization of the ship class requires 2 weeks for components, 3 weeks (minimum) for engines, and 4 weeks for structural / armor reconfiguration. Repairs to these components take half the time listed here to execute.

* * *

><p>ClassModel/Name: Garm-class Corvette (Stripped Variant)

Mass: 250,000 tons

Equipment:

Power Plant, Drive & Control: 30,000.00

Thrust: Safe Thrust: 2

Maximum Thrust: 3

Structural Integrity: 80 (20,000.00 T)

Total Heat Sinks: 289 Double .00

Fuel & Fuel Pumps: 8,160.00

Bridge, Controls, Radar, Computer & Attitude Thrusters: 625.00

Fire Control Computers: 0.00

Food & Water: (348 days supply) (200.00 T)

Armor Type: Clan Ferro-carbide (367 total armor pts) (354.00 T)

Capital Scale Armor Pts

Location:

Fore: 69

Fore-Left/Right: 61/61

Aft-Left/Right: 61/61

Aft: 54

Cargo:

Bay 1: Small Craft (2) with 2 doors (400.00 T)

Bay 2: Cargo (1) with 10 doors (180,201.00 T)

DropShip Capacity: 4 Docking Hardpoints (4,000.00 T)

Life Boats: 40 (7 tons each) (280.00 T total)

Crew and Passengers:

15 Officers (15 minimum) (150.00 T)

70 Crew (80 minimum) (490.00 T)

20 2nd Class Passengers (140.00 T)

10 Bay Personnel (0.00 T)

1 Lot Spare Parts (1.00%) (2,500.00 T)

1 Gravitic Lattice (2,500.00 T)

TOTAL: 250,000.00 Tons

Calculated Factors:

Total Cost: 199,298,000 C-Bills

Battle Value: 16,271

Cost per BV: 12,248.66

Weapon Value: 0 (Ratio = .00)

Damage Factors: SRV = 0; MRV = 0; LRV = 0; ERV = 0

Maintenance: Maintenance Point Value (MPV) = 192,221

(123,581 Structure, 65,750 Life Support, 2,890 Weapons)

Support Points (SP) = 256,395 (133% of MPV)

BattleForce2: Not applicable

* * *

><p>ClassModel/Name: Garm-class Corvette (Stripped Towing Variant)

Mass: 250,000 tons

Equipment:

Power Plant, Drive & Control: 30,000.00

Thrust: Safe Thrust: 2

Maximum Thrust: 3

Structural Integrity: 80 (45,000.00 T)

Total Heat Sinks: 289 Double

Towing Adapter: 100.00 T

Fuel & Fuel Pumps: 8,160.00 Tons

Bridge, Controls, Radar, Computer & Attitude Thrusters: 625.00

Fire Control Computers: 0.00

Food & Water: (348 days supply) (200.00 T)

Armor Type: Clan Ferro-carbide (367 total armor pts) 354.00

Capital Scale Armor Pts

Location:

Fore: 69

Fore-Left/Right: 61/61

Aft-Left/Right: 61/61

Aft: 54

Cargo:

Bay 1: Small Craft (2) with 2 doors (400.00 T)

Bay 2: Cargo (1) with 10 doors 155,101.00 Tons

DropShip Capacity: 4 Docking Hardpoints (4,000.00 T)

Life Boats: 40 (7 tons each) (280.00 T)

Crew and Passengers:

15 Officers (15 minimum) (150.00 T)

70 Crew (80 minimum) (490.00 T)

20 2nd Class Passengers (140.00 T)

10 Bay Personnel

1 Lot Spare Parts (1.00%) (2,500.00 T)

1 Gravitic Lattice (2,500.00 T)

TOTALS: Heat: 0 250,000.00

Calculated Factors:

Total Cost: 199,498,000 C-Bills

Battle Value: 16,271

Cost per BV: 12,260.96

Weapon Value: 0 (Ratio = .00)

Damage Factors: SRV = 0; MRV = 0; LRV = 0; ERV = 0

Maintenance: Maintenance Point Value (MPV) = 342,470

(273,830 Structure, 65,750 Life Support, 2,890 Weapons)

Support Points (SP) = 283,695 (83% of MPV)

BattleForce2: Not applicable

* * *

><p>ClassModel/Name: Garm-class Corvette (Freight Variant)

Mass: 250,000 tons

Equipment:

Power Plant, Drive & Control: (60,000.00)

Thrust: Safe Thrust: 4

Maximum Thrust: 6

Structural Integrity: 80 (20,000.00 T)

Total Heat Sinks: 2,200 Double (1,809.00 T)

Fuel & Fuel Pumps: 8,160.00 T

Bridge, Controls, Radar, Computer & Attitude Thrusters: 625.00 T

Fire Control Computers: (0.00 T)

Food & Water: (348 days supply) (400.00 T)

Armor Type: Clan Ferro-carbide (385 total armor pts) 374.00

Capital Scale Armor Pts

Location:

Fore: 70

Fore-Left/Right: 65/65

Aft-Left/Right: 65/65

Aft: 55

Cargo:

Bay 1: Small Craft (2) with 2 doors (400.00 T)

Bay 2: Cargo (1) with 10 doors (100,353.00 T)

DropShip Capacity: 4 Docking Hardpoints (4,000.00 T)

Life Boats: 40 (7 tons each) (280.00 T)

Crew and Passengers:

25 Officers (25 minimum) (250.00 T)

75 Crew (70 minimum) (525.00 T)

50 Gunners (43 minimum) (350.00 T)

20 2nd Class Passengers (140.00 T)

50 Marine Battle Armor Troopers/Elementals (350.00 T)

10 Bay Personnel .00

Weapons and Equipment, Loc

3 Heavy NPPC(C) Nose

3 Heavy NPPC(C) Nose

4 Large Pulse Laser(C) Nose

4 Large Pulse Laser(C) Nose

2 NL55(C) FL/R

2 NL55(C) FL/R

4 Large Pulse Laser(C) FL/R

4 Large Pulse Laser(C) FL/R

2 NL55(C) L/RBS

2 NL55(C) L/RBS

4 Large Pulse Laser(C) L/RBS

4 Large Pulse Laser(C) L/RBS

2 NL55(C) AL/R

2 NL55(C) AL/R

4 Large Pulse Laser(C) AL/R

4 Large Pulse Laser(C) AL/R

2 NL55(C) Aft

4 Large Pulse Laser(C) Aft

4 Large Pulse Laser(C) Aft

1 Lot Spare Parts (1.00%) (2,500.00 T)

1 Gravitic Lattice (2,500.00 T)

TOTALS:

Heat: 4,200

Tons 250,000

Calculated Factors:

Total Cost: 487,740,000 C-Bills

Battle Value: 75,022

Cost per BV: 6,501.29

Weapon Value: 44,436 (Ratio = .59)

Damage Factors: SRV = 2,776; MRV = 2,723; LRV = 1,991; ERV = 674

Maintenance: Maintenance Point Value (MPV) = 353,971

(122,803 Structure, 131,500 Life Support, 99,668 Weapons)

Support Points (SP) = 440,450 (124% of MPV)

BattleForce2: Not applicable


	6. The Moving Gravestone

(Jokers Wild, Set 2, Chapter 6: The Moving Gravestone)

(26 January CE 73, 1100 Hours UTC)  
>(Warship <em>Mjolnr<em>, in stationary position nearby Mendel)

"All Girty Lue crew members are to disembark by Docking Collar Charlie-3 and immediately route to Cargo Bay Delta-3-Echo. Marines will be on station to guide you," the _Mjolnr_ radio officer ordered. "The ship will be swept and deactivated after crew has cleared."

Commodore Roanoke sighed heartily, but without result. Much as he expected, the Magi were merciless in naval warfare given the present force was specialized in it. The _Girty Lue_ had failed to render a single decent shot at the _Dominion_, they had hit the ship so hard and so fast. By the time Captain Ian Lee had even a proper understanding of what was going on, his ship had been effectively disarmed and swarmed by hostile Mobile Suits. It would have been embarrassing if the _Girty Lue_ was operating as part of a fleet, but in this case it was just plain terrifying to see the power of one of the Mobile Assault Ships in action when combined with Magi mobile forces tactics.

"Well, they didn't kill us outright," Captain Lee noted. "That says something."

"They either like us, or they hate us to the point they want to drag it out," Roanoke noted.

"Well, after you, Commodore," Ian gestured to the hatch out of the bridge after the remainder of the bridge staff departed.

Neo Roanoke considered that first runs may be unlucky for him in the overall sense. His first run in the Black Hand Mercenary Formation was an abysmal failure, and now the first run in Phantom Pain Special Forces was a wipeout of monumental proportions. After a few meters of distance covered while considering it, he decided that the overwhelming factor here was Magi involvement. The great wise-asses of space were not as comical or inept as he had been led to believe, and their defensive acumen was far tougher than any estimate ever put to paper. For certain, the _Dominion_ had completely denied entry into the Debris Belt by its mere presence. Such an action was no mean feat for an older LCAM-type ship, and no mean feat for an unsupported unit outside the Mendel SDIZ.

"Well, time to find out what we are classified as. Pirates, Terrorists, Special Operations, or Regular Military," Neo said as he drifted through the hatch and into the brief gap of the docking collar. The closer he got to the Mendel ship, the more gravity began to take hold from the Mages' artificial gravity lattice built into the ship. By the time he was ready to actually enter the ship, he was walking at normal Terran gravity, an eerie feeling in space.

Once inside the ship, Neo was struck by the sheer history of it. In every direction he looked, there was some manner of painting pertaining to the story of the Empire or the actions of the ship. He had heard rumors from Natarle that the inside of the ships were definitely artsy, but the degree to which they were decorated was unreal to the Commodore.

A particular mural caught his eye after he turned the corner heading toward the cargo bay where the crew was being disembarked, and it took him a few moments to recognize the symbolism of the painting. In all, 21 stylized depictions of unusual animals existed on the mural, and under each was a date and type of support given to a military campaign. One of the more striking entries was for the Snow Ravens, which support was listed as 'Engaged and captured or destroyed 14 Snow Raven warships, battles 5 June and 29 June AF-1610, to pave the way for their absorption into the Touman of the Magi.' Equally significant was the listing under the Wolves, which read 'Deployed 4 Galaxies of mixed forces to planet Tamar and supported with suborbital fire and fighter strikes; planet listed secure 9 November AF-1735'.

The symbolism of the mural was not lost on Ian lee, who had studied the Clans of Kerensky in detail to understand how Magi warriors would think in terms of honorable action. "21 Clans, and at one time in this ship's history, it participated in absorbing each," he commented.

"Repeats, in several of these cases," Neo noted, indicating the Smoke Jaguars who had four separate listings of absorption. "Hell, the painting behind us is also an indicator that we're not playing against rookies with nice toys."

Ian glanced over the painting and saw a space naval battle of significant proportion, Dark Moon warships against the _Mjolnr_ and her escort monitors. Given the _Mjolnr_ was here, now, and the Dark Moon forces were not, Ian considered it safe to say the _Mjolnr_ had not lost that battle. "Not really surprising. This ship has the luck of the Devil himself, and so do her forces."

"Well, shall we be off?" Neo asked, acutely aware of the assorted looks from the ship's crew.

"Aye," Ian Lee answered. They joined a group of gunnery technicians from their ship in heading into the cargo bay.

It turned out to be the last of the ship's crew to enter the bay. "All personnel have arrived, Captain Ward," the Ship's AI announced as Neo and Ian took position with the other officers at the head of the crowd.

"Attention to orders!" Captain Glennaste Ward (the second) shouted above the din of the bay. "While your ship does not have any known registry or calling, we have determined that the Phantom Pain force is indeed a special operations formation of the Earth Alliance, and therefore is not a pirate force. Therefore, all of you may breathe easy in that you shall not be executed for terrorism or piracy." A few persons grumbled, but a larger amount in the crowd made fair to cheer their now-living fate.

"That's good news," Neo said offhand to nobody in particular. An Armored Marine looked in his direction but did or said nothing of note.

Captain Ward continued: "However, given that the Phantom Pain formation is also a military subdivision of LOGOS, and is directly funded by LOGOS, this cannot be overlooked. As such, all Girty Lue crew will be rotated into the ranks of the Bondsmen. There shall be no option for jail and release for LOGOS personnel, you men have a debt to pay for your participation in these events and the only escape from that debt is payment or death. I will leave that choice to you, but for now we work on assignments."

"Okay, this is not so good news," Ian lee said. With the crew broken up, the chance of meaningful resistance was reduced, and Mendel had nine ships (eleven, including civilian ships) to send the 95 surviving crewmembers to.

"First, Pilots Sting Oakley, Auel Neider and Stella Loussier are assigned to the warship _Dominion_ directly to Century Commander Gerald Lightbringer." Said three pilots were not present, due to them being so traumatized by Gerald's illusion that he had ordered them sedated until they could be reviewed by the Strategic Psionic. "Additionally, four general crew and two engine mechanics are to be assigned to the _Dominion_."

Two Marines pulled the six crewmembers out of the crowd, though there was no force needed. Over the two days tow for the _Girty Lue_, the Earth Alliance crew had come to the conclusion that there was no way out. A few seconds later, four were assigned to _Thrones_, and nine would go to the _Vladivostok_. So went the assignment of Bondsmen, a ritual thousands of years old and favored among mixed commands because the whole crew of the Girty Lue could not be put on one ship (except the _Mjolnr_) without displacing most of the crew.

Under the watchful guns of the Marines, a hundred men learned that fate was a cruel thing to deal with, moreso when your superiors didn't really care about the lives of the subordinates. The Earth Alliance had been quick to disavow any knowledge or involvement of the attack, which made Mendel's position easy and inevitable. _Dominion_ engaged a pirate ship that had shot up Armory One, which made the ship isorla of the _Dominion_. Politically expedient and effective, the crew was forsaken by their parent government and now had nowhere to go...except into the service of Mendel or out an airlock.

The last step of the process was simple. Each person captured was issued a bondcord, a symbolic rope around their left wrist woven of four strands: Light blue (for their former employer), Gray (the national color of the Magi), dark blue (for their defeat at the hands of the _Dominion_), and pearl white (for the commander of the defeating force, Gerald Lightbringer). Each would wear this rope until they were freed of their bond by their commanding officer when they were ready to enter the Mendel civilians or warriors, though in most their cases it would be years before that day, and in some cases over a decade or never.

After Neo received his placement (on the _Mjolnr_, no less) and received his bondcord, he wondered why Mendel wasn't really concerned about interrogating him or the other officers. When he saw Strategic Officer Calamira Weste talking to the Century Commander near the bridge, with three like-dressed teens nearby, he knew immediately he had been played, ZAFT had been played, and most of all the Earth Alliance had been played hard.

-x-x-x-

(29 January CE 73, 0900 Hours UTC)  
>(Mendel Colony)<p>

"Right this way, Chairman Durandal," one of the diplomatic mission SPOs said, gesturing to (of all things) an armored personnel carrier. They had purchased it from Mendel (and contracted out a fusion engine tech to maintain it) for VIPs to move around the colony inconspicuously. An armored limo or armored SUV would have been obvious; an APC, even with ZAFT markings, was nondescript on these roads and even more so in Mendel II.

"Everything is set up?" The Chairman asked the ambassador after the APC was rolling.

"Yes, sir, you have a priority meeting arranged with Gerald Lightbringer and Wayne Centara. We have confirmed that Calamira Weste is on the _Mjolnr_, seeing to some of the captured persons from the ship, so she does not factor into this at all."

"I doubt we will escape her oversight," Durandal commented dryly. He had made an in-depth study of the Magi Strategic Psionic programs, with special attention paid to their best personnel of record. Calamira was not listed there, but if she even came close, he knew what to expect. "Still, it does not matter. We have lost confidentiality, but we can regain operational advantage. That is my objective."

"We might be able to negotiate that position," Ambassador Lu Hunom hedged; his voice betrayed his fears.

"You do not think we can win our machines back?" Durandal asked after a half a block's distance in silence.

"Not likely, sir. Their Century Commander has taken an immediate interest in the pilots that captured our machines, and my source inside the Magi says he intends to clean them up and turn them against the Earth Alliance — using the captured machines," the ambassador groused. "It's bullshit, they profit from the Earth Alliance efforts and our losses, and by their rules it is completely on the up and up."

"I know," Durandal groused. "We can't get them on procedural terms, but we may get them on other metrics," he said.

"If I may, sir?" Ambassador Hunom asked.

"Coming up on the Administration Building, sir!" the driver shouted back into the crew cabin.

"You may," Durandal replied.

"I suggest we don't hammer them too hard on this one. It may be a BFD to the military, losing their machines and getting chopped up by this ship, but keep in mind that Mendel did us a favor by taking these assets out of Earth Alliance hands, they captured one of the top five strategists in the EA, and now can give us a wide range of take on EA sources and methods. We may have lost the first round, but if we play it right we can profit far more in the end."

The APC had been sitting at the stop for several seconds; Durandal had held his hand over the door actuator to prevent it opening. "Okay, what you just said flies in the face of what two-thirds my military advisors have told me. Why?"

"Is Yzak in the group that sides with me?" the Ambassador asked.

"He is, why?" Durandal asked.

"Yzak knows Mendel. I've been here long enough to appreciate their sense of humor. They will play nice, even if they stole our toys from the neighborhood bully, so long as we're willing to let them play nice."

Durandal sighed. "Okay. I will have to ask for them back, but if you see a creative out, inform me immediately."

Once outside the APC, Durandal entered the guarded front door of the Administration Building. Inside, the facility was as it always was, part greenhouse and part administration building. The amount of flower planters and small trees was significant, especially for a colony that did not have a huge amount of space to spare. Another Armored Marine held the elevator for him and a Star Captain marshalled the elevator up to the 10th floor, the only logical place the Chairman of ZAFT would be going.

On the 10th floor, two more Armored Marines were standing at guard, as well as a very physically fit secretary that Durandal had little reason to doubt was likely a Marine herself...or worse. "Chairman Durandal, an honor."

"Thank you. I am here for a meeting with the Star Admiral and Century Commander," he prompted her.

"Aye, sir. Star Admiral Centara is awaiting you in his office. Shall I bring yourself or your men any refreshments?" she asked.

"Not necessary, thank you," Durandal turned left, to where the Star Admiral's office was. His door was guarded by a single man in a dark blue uniform, a distinction that Durandal was not aware of in the Mendel forces. Without word, the soldier in question simply opened the door and held it open for the entourage, but in so doing Durandal got a good look at his armpatch and the single silver triangle in the center of the traditional stacked triangle pyramid. That made him a Commando, and a frightening choice for a door guard.

"Chairman Durandal, well come," Star Admiral Centara. "I've heard the latest from Armory One. The colony is no longer in jeopardy?" the old soldier asked with sincerity.

"The conditions in the colony are stable, though we still have personnel MIA," the Chairman responded readily as he took the offered seat across the desk from the Star Admiral. Ambassador Hunom sat down next to the Chairman, but Gerald made no move from standing next to the desk.

"If you need men, machines, ships for a manhunt, you need only ask. Space is as inhospitable as it is welcoming; being stranded out there is not pleasant."

"It should not be necessary at this time, thank you," Durandal closed down the small-talk of the meeting with what he hoped was a soft-enough letdown.

"Aye," Wayne noted as he resumed seat at his desk. "Thank you, Heinrich, that shall be all for now," he said to the Commando at the door.

"Aye, sir," the Commando ducked out into the lobby and closed the door behind him. All that remained in the room was Durandal, the ZAFT Ambassador, Wayne Centara and his 2-I-C Gerald Lightbringer.

"All right, I can pretty much guess what you called this meeting over, and that without consulting Calamira," Wayne said. "You want the three prototypes back."

"Bluntly stated, that is ZAFT's position," Lu preempted the Chairman with something akin to hardball, given he could sense that Mendel was expecting some hardball by the way Gerald was standing effectively at guard. "We did put several thousand man-hours into engineering each of those machines, and we would like to recoup some of that."

"Perfectly understandable," Wayne answered, a reply that shocked both Chairman and Ambassador. They were expecting instant hostility, and so far they weren't getting any. "A new model is research, fabrication, pride-of-place and most of all national prestige. Losing those models before their official fielding date was a slap in the face to the entirety of ZAFT, and wanting to recoup that loss is both justified and expected."

"Exactly," Chairman Durandal noted. "More to the point, the three models are specialist machines of our New Millennium Project, and intended to work in conjunction with a new asset we will be fielding in the next several months."

"The warship _Minerva_," Gerald Lightbringer said directly. "ZAFT's entry into the levitating assault ship classification, and not a bad vessel in any particular," he continued adroitly. "I was wondering what the link between the ZAFT NTC and these machines was supposed to be. Three prototypes and nine standard models, a full compliment for the ship and plenty of striking power."

"In short, correct," Durandal admitted. It wasn't the largest revelation of all, but it was something.

"And, much as your ambassador has likely already briefed you on, decisions pertaining to those machines goes to the person to whom they are isorla — and that comes down to him," Wayne pointed to Gerald.

"I captured or rendered capable of capture all three machines and their pilots," Gerald admitted. "As such, the final say of the equipment and personnel is mine under Magi law. That said, I have plans for the pilots and plans for the machines; I am not much inclined to part ways with either, but I do have a secondary option available for you."

Durandal had been expecting that much, but he was not expecting a secondary. "I am listening, Century Commander," Gilbert commented.

"Have you ever heard the old Magi Technician's joke 'to turn 100 tons of steel wool into an Atlas, send in some Magi techs and beer,'?" Gerald asked.

"I have," Durandal had happened across that joke during his studies of the Technicians and Scientists as they existed among the Magi.

"Well, with the advent of nanomachining, it is no longer a joke. Given a nanomachine system, roughly 180 tons of material, and patience, it is possible to turn a pile of junk into a new, shiny assault 'mech. Same principle applies to Gundams just the same as it does assault 'mechs: combine scrap, nanomachines, blueprints, stir vigorously, let sit for a few weeks, and you have a new machine. An alternate recipe would be to have the nanomachines build each component to specification, then have technicians assemble the machine from base parts. It is quite a bit faster, but requires actual manpower."

"Okay then," the ambassador gaped. Durandal had known of the capability, but never put it through the actual consideration of how much nanomachining could skew the field if used right. Gerald had essentially thrown down a loud gauntlet by declaring that he could mass-manufacture anything he wanted, given enough time and material.

Durandal, despite the shock, was not caught unawares as was the ambassador. "You are extending this capability as an offer?"

"Aff. I am reluctant to return the machines, but I can have carbon copies built of them and sold to you. Before I continue, are you willing to bargain?"

It took Durandal no more than three-quarters of a second to make that decision. "I will entertain an offer," he said, using an older Magi turn of phrase to get the ball rolling.

"ZAFT has four older frame designs captured from the Earth Alliance. Duel, Blitz, Buster, and Aegis. Full schematics for a set of the machines," the Century Commander prompted the ZAFT contingent.

Durandal, sensing a possible coup in the water, decided an extension was in order. "It is also no secret ZAFT designed three advanced machines based on those frames, and with new technologies. You have one of those machines, the Providence, which you captured in the Second of Jachin Due, also isorla of yours, I believe," the Chairman nodded to Gerald.

"Aff, but it bloody well cost me more than I wanted to pay to acquire it," Gerald admitted. A damaged Mobile Armor was no big deal; losing the pilot of that armor was a loss the Magi would be hard-pressed to replace, and Mendel had little chance of doing on its own.

"Full schematics on the other two for a second set," Durandal offered.

"Two for two," Wayne offered in counter.

Durandal made a show of deciding. "Okay, Freedom and Justice for a second Chaos and Abyss." Durandal figured having a second Gaia fabricated would be reasonably easy.

"Well bargained and done," Wayne answered.

_That was too easy_, Durandal considered.

"I was expecting a little tougher negotiation on this matter. It is good to see we can sort the small issues out when options are on the table," Wayne noted, barely concealing a smile. "Now, if I may present a position?"

"Please," Durandal said with a smile. Playing chess against the Magi was always a different game to his usual political processes, given they thought and acted like no other party in Existence except themselves. It would be that motif, the chessboard of hexagons as opposed to squares, six forces instead of two, that gave him heart in the rest of the negotiations and in coming months.

-x-x-x-

(1 February CE 73, 1815 Hours Lima (UTC -11))  
>(Onogoro Spaceport, Emirate of Orb)<p>

"Your reservations are confirmed, Mister Trimes. Here are your boarding passes. First time to Mendel?"

"Yes, and looking forward to it," Jonathon Trimes answered with some fake cheerfulness. "Anything I need to worry about once I get there?"

"The only place you can use Earth-Dollars inside the colony is a bank or the port shops. Inside the colonies, it is mostly C-bills but a few shops can handle USSA Pesos or ZAFT Marks."

"Can we do a currency transfer there, or would it be wise to do it here?" the various Starports around the world also had internal banking functions that allowed for currency transfers. It was an extension of their aircraft / shuttle / dropship handling and maintenance abilities, and the necessity of buying parts or paying bills in a wide array of currency.

"Oh, most banks can handle it in Mendel, but I can do an exchange for you right now if you want," the clerk noted.

"Here sounds good," Jonathon Trimes decided. If anything, he didn't want the exchange fee going to a Mendel institution. "We'll convert, say, 2000 earth-dollars to C-bills, should cover a couple weeks' expenses, I would figure." He had already booked forward to a hotel and paid in full for two weeks, so all he needed was meal and spending money, and transportation if needed.

"Okay, after a standard conversion fee of one percent, you are turning in 1980 earth-dollars, which converts over to 380.77 C-bills. Please swipe your card at the terminal here," and the clerk provided them with a credit card terminal.

"Whoa, that little?" Jonathon asked, shocked that so many earth-dollars were going into so few C-bills.

"The exchange rate is 5.2 Earth-dollars to a C-bill," and the clerk pointed to an exchange rate sign on the wall that demonstrated all the major local currencies and their conversion rate to the other currencies. "It was 5.16 yesterday, but Mendel did their monthly declaration of their precious metals reserves and their value went up significantly. Something to do with one of the asteroids being mined out in the belt."

"It was platinum," her supervisor said after coming out of the back room. "Most of it was only industrial-grade, but some of the take was exchange-grade and Mendel inducted quite a bit of it."

"Makes sense," Jonathon groused. He did some investing on the side, but nothing major. Metals indexes were not his forte, but he did know to pay attention to them as an indicator of things to come. If Mendel was strengthening its position, that could be used for leveraged buyouts in the future — an interesting tidbit, but not completely germane to his present endeavor.

With a swipe of his card, he converted 2 grand Earth-dollars into slightly less than 400 C-bills, roughly four weeks of salary for himself, but a week and a half for his wife. After a moment, he was issued a disposable card and a business card. "It's not common, but occasionally people lose the card. If you do, call us night or day and we'll cancel the card and transfer it to the Mendel starport for reissue. That way you're covered and not stranded."

"Thank you."

"Present your boarding pass to one of the drivers outside, and they'll take you out to the Dropship."

The two headed out to the vehicle line, and decided on a truck due to their heavy bags and short head count. The driver helped hoist the bags into the load bed, and was reasonably silent on the drive out to the waiting Dropship. Boarding the Dropship was no huge deal, just a walk up a load ramp (clearly designed for cargo, not people) and into the guts of the ship.

"Trimes, right?" the loadmaster for the ship said. "Your suitcases and cargo goes in container C-41. You have less than three tons, right?"

"Yeah, just our bags," Jonathon said.

"Okay, no prob. Load your stuff up, dog it down, and head into the passenger area. We'll be leaving shortly."

In point of fact: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Kyle Loff, welcoming you to the 27th flight of the Passenger Dropship _Night Cruise_. We have a 6-hour flight from terra to Mendel, a four-hour park at the Mendel civilian dock while we take on fuel, and then another six-hour hop from Mendel to PLANT Junius Four. We will be departing in fifteen minutes, all passengers are to be in bed and belted down or seated and strapped in before that time. I will announce when we have left the atmosphere and you will be free to move about the ship."

"Beds? Why would a ferry need beds?" Cecilia Trimes asked her husband, the first thing she had said since the airport terminal on the mainland of Orb.

"I think they intend this ship for long-range hauls, to or from a Jumpship, which takes days instead of hours," her husband guessed correctly.

"Okay," Cecilia responded, internally convinced that a Jumpship would not be built because Blue Cosmos would eventually kill off Mendel.

Up on the second level of the Dropship, they found their beds quickly enough, as well as chairs next to those beds for seating purposes. The beds were far less than either of them were used to, actually coming a lot closer to military cots or bunk beds than proper beds. The chairs were the typical aerospace fare, though, with little in the way of amenity and a lot in the way of lacking comfort. Privacy was a shoddy affair, as only a thin retractable retainer partition separated each bunk set.

"Reminds me of the red-eye flights from Atlanta to London," Jonathon groused.

"Don't think about work, dear, we're here to relax and find our daughter."

"This is me, relaxed," Jonathon replied. "You know what's going to have to happen, though."

"I hope it works," Cecilia noted. Kidnapping someone was always a dicey affair, more so when the only way out of the area was shuttle flights to the other colonies or Earth. Everything would have to go right to make it work, but the family had a sort of luck on these things...

-x-x-x-

(3 February CE 73, 1000 Hours UTC)  
>(Handel Manufacturing Plant IV, Terra III (land strip III), Mendel II Colony)<p>

In Mendel II, Miriallia had found her niche as a reporter. There was always something to report on, something happening, something going wrong, and for a freelance reporter, it was gravy. In this case, however, the major happening was something she had mostly avoided in her military years, firearms, though it was a major story for multiple reasons. Handel Manufacturing was employing over two hundred persons in this one facility, which made it a real news story in a colony that was always looking for work. The factory was also contributing to the defense of the colonies, and Miriallia was about to get a crash course in how it was doing so.

"There's a bit of unreality to it," the plant foreman noted with a smile. "Components of the ammunition come in one end of the factory, and they go out the other end as completed munitions. I didn't believe that myself until I walked the running line and managed to keep pace with a shell from start to finish."

"How many lines do you have in here?" a particularly nosy reporter asked.

"We have ten lines right now, with room for another five in this plant. We do one line of .45 Auto, two lines of 5.56, two separate lines of .50 Browning, one for machine gun API rounds and one for steel-core open-tip sniper rounds, and that's just the small arms work. The heavy weapons are split into five shops, one autocannon, one gauss rifle, one missile, one artillery, and one infantry weapons that the boss is thinking about turning over to missiles and bringing in dedicated machines for the infantry."

"Why so much emphasis on the infantry weapons? The next war will be decided by Mobile Suits," a particularly naïve blogger-reporter asked sharply.

"You believe Mobile Suits are dominant? You ain't seen what an Armored Marine can do to a Mobile Suit," the foreman said. "C'mon, let's get down to the meat of the tour."

"Man, I know a Mobile Suit can smoke an Armored Marine," the blogger-reporter commented under his breath.

"Relax, man," Miriallia said quietly. "He is right, though. I used to command Mobile Suits, but I was deathly afraid of the Marines if they ever had to go hand-to-hand against my Mobile Suits."

"Serious? That's nuts!"

"Shhh," Miriallia cautioned him.

"We have our powders manufactured by a subcontractor, a chemical outfit elsewhere in this colony. They come in here by the truckload and are dumped into this special elevator system. Everything is made of brass in the powder handling loop, to prevent sparks accidentally setting the system off, and the motor for the elevator is double-isolated from the powder feed to prevent an electrical flash." The Foreman had the elevator auger access panel open to show the tour group how it carried powder up the elevator and into the holding system for the charging machine.

"Have you had any industrial accidents since you began operations?"

"Just one, over in the autocannon room. Operator had his hand caught in a press between a shell case and the press ram. He lost the hand, but we pay top-dollar medical so he had his hand rebuilt by medical nanomachines in the local hospital. He was back to work the following week, and actually will be on duty when we get around there. They call him 'bronze hand' around the shop for it."

"About how many rounds do you crank out in a day?" Miriallia asked as they continued moving down the line.

"Each small arms line will produce roughly five thousand rounds an hour, and since we load for precision on all of our lines, we guarantee our results so we have to do it right. QC is handled at the Marine Barracks up the road, and the Marines give the final say on it, because our customers are very demanding."

"Why? In war, you throw as much lead as possible — "

"And if you ain't throwing quality lead, all you're going to do is piss off the enemy you're shooting at." The Foreman sighed, since he knew the Earth Alliance ethos permeated a lot of people and gave them bad ideas. "Look, I know the Earth Alliance throws quantity at their foes, but the Magi do not. These Marines are trained as riflemen, sometimes from their years of school, sometimes even as far back as six years old. These are soldiers that expect that when they put sights on target, they expect that what they see is what they get. And if it don't happen that way, they want to know why and the first thing they're going to question is the ammo. The M4B5 Assault Rifles they use with this 5.56 ammo are precision engineered tools, capable of spitting the 65-grain tungsten-tip penetrator rounds out to 1000 meters reliably. If those rounds don't get to where they are aiming, it's someone's ass and I sure as hell don't want it to be mine."

Miriallia watched the presses on the line, as brass blanks came in one side, were hammered into shape in one swift motion and reamed out the primer pocket, then dropped into the feed for the next step. The cases were trimmed down as they passed around a conveyor feed and heated at the neck (annealed) to make them easier to load. From blank to formed case took the press less than five seconds total, and certainly a lot more than 100 cases per minute were passing where she was standing. If anything, the Foreman was underestimating how fast he was turning rounds out by a significant amount.

"And how big are the munitions contracts you are supplying?" a professional reporter asked.

"10 million c-bills per round classification, at this time, with option to expand those contracts," the Foreman said plaintively.

The only thing keeping jaws from hitting the floor was the lack of slack for them to go that far. Even Miriallia was stunned at the amount of lead being prepared for Mendel, given that a single c-bill would buy ten rounds of the 5.56 rolling past her. That came out to two hundred million rounds counting both 5.56 lines, and she could only begin to guess how many rounds that would be for .45 Auto or .50 BMG. For a military force that barely numbered 15,000 personnel, that was a nightmarishly hell of a lot of ammo.

"Holy shit, dude, that's enough ammo to kill off the entire Earth Alliance military thirty times over, and still have leftovers," the blogger said with a squeak.

"Ever look into how much ammo gets slung in a shooting engagement?" the Foreman asked plaintively. "The Mendel Armored Marines are one of the most efficient military forces in terms of ammo, but their expectation is still a nightmare of ordnance expenditure with a realistic expectation of 1 kill per 300 rounds expended when all the shooting is said, done and tallied up. The Earth Alliance has an expectation of 1 kill per 50,000 rounds, as of their last force-wide evaluation."

"That's more than two orders of magnitude difference," a ZAFT reporter said.

"Exactly," the Foreman countered. "And now you know why we're sticklers for quality. They need that quality, if they expect to keep up the kill ratios." The Foreman turned to the next press in the line, where the cases went under some kind of feeding mechanism to receive the powder. "This press is where the cases get their primers, inserted from the bottom of the machine, and a charge of powder. These things are hypersensitive, capable of metering charge out to plus or minus a twenty-fifth of a grain, which gives us unsurpassed consistency when loading the cartridges."

"How many Coordinators are working these lines?" a faux reporter asked. It was fairly obvious to Miriallia that he was some form of spy, since she could not remember him from any other press soiree in the colony.

"I don't know, and I don't really care," the Foreman said. "So long as what comes out of the far end of the line is working cartridges, I wouldn't care if it was green squeaking tentacled fucking Martians running the presses," he answered the spy's asinine question.

"Okay, dude, chill, just asking," the 'reporter' backtracked.

"And this is where the business end arrives," the Foreman deliberately declared in a grandiose gesture to pull attention away from the press operator, whose light-blue hair gave away her status as a Coordinator to a stunning degree. "The charged case meets its bullet, and suddenly everything is ready to go. This press places the bullet, rams it, and crimps the case into the bullet for uniform feeding and chamber pressure, all with tolerances of five thousandths of a millimeter. That level of precision is only possible with the use of these finely-engineered machines and skilled operators."

"And thus is born the cartridge," an old-hand reporter noted.

"Exactly," the Foreman said. "Once loaded, the cartridges stack up on this release until their weight exceeds a predefined value, then they are dropped into a chute and into a waiting box. Mendel orders their ammo in 1000-round loose-pack cases and 300-round boxes of 10-round stripper clips. The second press line is doing the stripper clip loading right now. The strippers are used by the riflemen, the loose-pack is used by their SAW gunners since it is easier to link loose rounds than to de-clip them then link 'em back in."

"That's...well, an army runs on beans and bullets, so..." the old-hand reporter noted.

"I second that," Miriallia said fervently, having served her time on the _Archangel_.

"And that is the general flow of creating ammo from base components to completed round. Any questions?"

"How soon before you can begin producing for the civilian market?" the blogger asked. It was a pressing question, given the shortage of local-manufacture ammo in the colony and significant demand for it.

His was the first in a barrage of similar questions.

-x-x-x-

(7 February CE 73, 1000 Hours Lima (UTC -3))  
>(USSA Military Administration, Manaus, Brazil)<p>

"This is going to be interesting," the President said to his major military advisor.

"Not like it isn't expected. She was a major advocate of peace, and likely still is, but don't forget that she also knows how to command the respect of some pretty hardened forces. She's seen the barrel of the gun from both sides." Ed Harrelson said with an eye toward setting these record straight.

"Okay, Harrelson, give me your full-up opinion. What is she trying to accomplish with this?" the President asked.

"Honestly, sir, I think she is seeing the same things we are — a world heading face-first into a nasty space-versus-earth war — and she wants to try to stop it before it begins."

"Not gonna happen," the President said. "If the Earth Alliance and Blue Cosmos cannot back down, we cannot back down or we get flattened again."

"Yeah," Harrelson groused. "I know that, you know that, any military analyst knows that, but it doesn't fit the notion of peace in most people's minds."

"Maybe we're going about this wrong," the President said. "Not that I'm much of a fan of their internal policies, but Mendel lives on the phrase '_si vis pacem, para bellum_.' " Harrelson knew the phrase by its common translation: 'If you want peace, prepare for war' as was commonly said. He also had to admit it was the best description of the Magi as a whole, second only to 'modern-day honorable vikings'.

"You're thinking about that? For the USSA?" Harrelson said.

"Not to the degree Mendel does so, but when we get questioned on it, we need to make it clear that we are willing to defend ourselves. Orb can be the pacifists in the world, the Earth Alliance clearly has a hard-on for us and we need to be ready for it." If anything was clear in the post-war months, the intelligence services knew that the Earth Alliance had a list of targets, and the USSA was third on that list.

"Can do, sir," Harrelson said as he held open the SUV door for the President.

-x-

Kira was reasonably sure he had spotted the two undercover officers that were doing recon on the cafe. Even despite being in the heart of Manaus, the USSA considered there was always threat, and had to act accordingly. It was a sad reality, he figured, and one even Cagalli had to worry about. It was also why he was with Lacus, because someone might have wanted to take a shot at her.

Lacus, while not particularly naïve of the issue, was also not factoring security concerns into the arrangements. On the other hand, Colonel Kisaka was doing the arrangements so they were not likely to make any major missteps. Kira also had a SPO license and authorization for the trip, which allowed him to carry a piece just in case. He didn't expect anything, but the value of his 'principal' in this case meant he had to be ready for it.

The appointment was at 1015, and was necessarily short — only 15 minutes, by request of Lacus. Her message was a preliminary one, not a lengthy set of negotiations. She was just beginning the process of reconciling the planet's divided peoples, and it would take several world tours to get it right.

Of course, the other part of her trip was a series of small-venue concerts in each country she was to visit, even in Mendel sometime in late April. The venues in Mendel II had sold out within minutes of tickets being offered, a surprising twist of premise to everyone at the orphanage when they heard about it. Word is that not much of the military liked Lacus, but apparently the civilians loved her.

The arrival of two SUVs with clearly souped-up engines meant the business was about to begin. "Game time, sweetie," Kira said.

"I'm ready for it. No different from my work on the concert stage," she convinced herself.

After a few moments of waiting, the President exited the van with one other person. Kira knew him from intelligence reports, Edward Harrelson, an ace Gundam pilot that was shanghaied into the Earth Alliance before the war, and fought them after the war. If he was present, Kira did not expect much from these negotiations. Still, Kira and Lacus both stood for the President as he approached, a proper sign of respect for one of his station.

"Lady Lacus, a pleasure to meet you in person," the President said. "And you must be Kira Yamato. I have heard much of your exploits during the war, and much of your assistance to Orb after it."

"Thank you, sir," Kira said, mildly surprised that he would receive any mention here, much less praise for his semi-famous charity work.

"An honor to meet with you on this important subject, President Milte," Lacus noted. "May I order you anything?"

"No, thank you. May I?" he gestured to the chair opposite her.

"Please," Lacus allowed. "Mister Harrelson, if you want?" she gestured to the other chair.

"Thanks," Ed took the offered seat readily.

"So, Miss Clyne, you called the meet, how may we help you?" the President asked.

"Well, there's no real easy way to say this, so I'll just start with my concerns. I'm starting to see a lot of the same rhetoric that preceded the first Bloody Valentine War, and it concerns me deeply to see those mistakes repeated again."

"Indeed, we are seeing and believing the same," the President agreed. "A word that wants peace, but heads for war. The two worst of them are the Earth Alliance and Mendel, but admittedly ZAFT and Equatorial are not far behind."

"It is troubling to a very severe degree," Lacus amplified her position.

"Yes, and just as much as we abhor the rhetoric, have you listened to the people about it?" President Milte asked.

That was a question that caught Lacus off guard. "I must admit I have not heard much from the people of Orb on the matter," she said warily.

"You probably will not," Ed Harrelson noted. "Orb and Scandinavia look like they're pretty well set to stay out of this one. The first string is going to be ZAFT, Mendel and the Earth Alliance. Equatorial may throw in, but only as a token gesture; they're really liking the modernization of their infrastructure, so they're not going to royally piss off Mendel or ZAFT."

"That leaves the United States of South America," Lacus considered.

"Yeah, us," the President said. "I really don't want to see another occupation of my homeland, so when the ball drops I am not throwing in," he semi-lied. Alicia Yamato had made a very good case for the USSA waiting, and he intended to take advantage of it. "But, I am willing to guess you are also concerned about the remilitarization of the USSA, right?"

"I am. Not for the necessity of it, but the threat of it," Lacus said.

"Fair concern, I will admit. Still, I implore you to ask at every such meeting you make, and don't ask the politician in the room, ask the security officers in the room. Ask the intelligence analyst, if there is one. Ask them what it takes to tell a schoolyard bully to stop. There will be your answer." He sighed, clearly wearied by the coming subject matter, Lacus gauged. "I'll be the first person to admit I don't like Mendel's internal policies; the best description I can give to them is 'street justice with a small hint of a rule book'. On the other hand, their operative motto is an old Latin phrase, '_si vis pacem, para bellum_', and they are living proof that it works."

"How?" Lacus asked plaintively. She knew the phrase, and Kira had his own opinion on it.

"The schoolyard bully is afraid of them. You do realize there have been no Blue Cosmos attacks in the colony for months now? The Earth Alliance keeps its fleets close in to the moon, afraid of straying too close to Mendel or ZAFT territory and getting shot up for it. Their defectors and deserters speak of raw fear, the dread of having to face Mendel's guns and Marines. Just last week, a movie was leaked of a point of Marines swarming and dismantling an old Strike Dagger in eleven seconds flat. The following five days, I had eight Strike Daggers from the Earth Alliance Panama Garrison in Colombia, requesting political asylum, and tales of another four that didn't make it across the border when they tried. They were shot up from behind by the newer Dagger L units."

Kira grimaced. He had seen the movie of the live-fire drill, but more to the point he had seen it dozens of times in simulation on the _Mjolnr_. It was a trained specialty of all Magi Armored Infantry, the ability to 'disassemble' standing armor units with a swarm attack, and the Marines demonstrated it on Yzak's Gundam almost to a tee. The incident with the defecting Strike Daggers had not made it to his ears, yet, so he would have to file an intel report at the embassy when he arrived there later today.

The President gave her a few moments. "You want peace. We all want peace. No sane soldier wants war; most of us have seen it, and most of us don't want to repeat it. All that I can say is that we are slowly being backed into a corner by the Earth Alliance, with the unstated threat of 'join or die' just as it was in the last war. We will hold out until the end, but once that end comes, all bets are off. If you can talk some sense into them, do it, please. The world doesn't want this, but we are not going to be steamrolled again."

"If you can stop 'em, a world will thank you for it," Harrelson said fervently.

"If I can stop them," Lacus echoed. "How do I?" She asked.

"I don't know. I don't know what they want," Harrelson answered for the President. "Find what they want, and you will find the way to end it before it begins."

-x-x-x-

(10 February CE 73, 1335 Hours Lima (UTC +8)  
>(Special Equipment Factory HA-1, Undisclosed Location, Equatorial Union)<p>

The factory workers nearest the exit covered their ears to protect against the loud whine of the turbofans on the machine. It was a new technology, and silencing it was relatively impossible, but it was the sound of freedom for the Equatorial Union. It was a sound nobody objected to.

Another Bullfrog Light Hovertank was getting its fan array tested, the necessary last step before it left the factory to join the new formation. Some of the jokers in the factory made a point to stand behind the main blower and make faces in the blowing wind, though that lasted only as long as it took someone to be struck in the face by a loose bolt. The foremans made sure that practice was put to rest.

The Bullfrog was nothing short of a miraculous coup against Mendel. The amount of ground armor units that the Magi fielded actually (surprisingly) exceeded their air forces and mobile suits, at least in their homeland. Hover Tanks were a favored part of that arsenal for their utility capabilities and their speed, not to mention their go-anywhere abilities. This made them near-perfect units for the mostly-island nation, even better than Mobile Suits given their wide range of mobility.

The coup was only remotely possible because of a hint of carelessness in Handel Manufacturing's datacenter. A routine design inquiry into hovertanks from the manufacturing conglomerate allowed for a man-in-the-middle attack against Handel's datacenter, which gave the Equatorial Intelligence Bureau access to the design schema of the wildly-popular Condor IIM hovertank, a heavy brute capable of bringing down a Gundam with enough tanks and good crews. By the time the analysts had finished reviewing the designs, one wise-ass in the IB building said that there were more dicks vertical in the building than there were helicopters in the skies of Terra.

Reverse-engineering the fan design was simple, and scaling it down to Equatorial needs was also easy enough. The specific armor used was a no-go, but Equatorial scientists had managed to create a pidgin of steel plate, ceramic discs, asbestos, and kevlar to give them something resembling the necessary protection. The front, sides and turret armor could take one hit apiece from a beam rifle with the expectation of crew survival, but not much more than that.

Magi (Mendel) hovertanks had fusion engines, which allowed them to run for days on a single tank of fuel, but since the EU was still working on stealing fusion engine designs, that was out of the question. Instead, a biofuel-diesel-electric hybrid engine was put in place to run the fans, which provided lift and thrust. Enough of a fuel bunker existed in the craft to allow it a round-trip range of 400 kilometers, an unheard distance for most ground armor units until you considered that the Bullfrog's only concern was lifting itself and pushing itself through the air.

"Fans are good, this is Bullfrog seven headed out to the firing range for a full-up weapons test," the Gunner / TC said.

"Rolling now," the test pilot said. Each of the tanks had only two crew members, a driver and a commander. With the clearance to move from the test TC, he put down some forward thrust and left the factory, then performed a picture-perfect sideslip turn down the road toward the firing range. "Damn, I love driving these things," the test driver said.

"Wait until we get some bigger ones on the line," the TC said with a savage smile. Bigger hovertanks would allow them to go toe-to-toe with heavier enemy units and bring more firepower to the game. These small units had good survivability for the era, but their weapon spread was a bit thin in most real-world estimates.

"Coming up on the firing range, sir," the driver said.

"I see it, getting ready to take some shots," the gunner / TC noted. He fired first at slightly over 2 kilometers with the main gun of the unit, a 65mm Linear Gun derived from the massive 330mm Gauss Rifles in use on the Fireball Aerofighter (they had bought a half-shredded fighter from the Junk Guild, which included an intact gauss rifle). It lofted a slug that was roughly a third of the size of the heavier Gauss Rifle, and it had a shorter barrel so it generated less speed, but the Mini Gauss Rifle (dubbed so by the factory workers, oddly enough) was also only four tons without ammo, an engineering marvel of mass and space considerations. The extant range was roughly the same as the Earth Alliance beam rifles, which would help level the playing field if needed.

"Solid hit, sir! Do it again!"

"Charging now, ready, firing!" another shot went downrange, this time at just under 2 kilometers, and another tank silhouette dropped from the hit. "Okay, get us in closer and get the lead out! I want to do some serious fire drills!"

"Moving in, sir!" the driver put on some more speed, bringing the machine up to its maximum speed of 129.5 km/h travel. A third shot went downrange, this time in closer, and as the hovercraft passed the 900-meter mark the gunner loosed the close-in weapon of the design. Four missiles were launched, three hit and sundered an APC silhouette.

The SRM missile system on the Bullfrog was another intelligence coup, but this time a lot dirtier and more grin-worthy. Blue Cosmos had stolen the designs of the Ironon Weapons Cross-Pattern SEP4 Launcher from the USSA, who were beginning production of their own right (and selling them back to Mendel). BC had offered the launcher to Equatorial if the EU promised to turn those launchers against Orb. Pretending to go along, the EU intelligence personnel accepted the offer and collected the schematics, then gunned down the Blue Cosmos agents. No BC swinging dick survived to tell the tale, and the press reported it as an ultranationalist attack that also killed several government functionaries, so Blue Cosmos thought they simply lost the team. Instant off-the-books profit.

"Damn good shooting, sir!"

"Some Blue Cosmos pussies are going to be hurting if they ever try shit against this thing," the T/C noted. "All right, we've used our ration of ammo, let's take it in for the regulars to play on."

"Aww, so soon? No fun!"

"You know the rules. We'll get our turn some day," the T/C assured the driver. Silently, he dreaded ever being called up by the military, because he knew what the MS boys would try to do to them if shit happened.

-x-x-x-

(15 February CE 73, 1745 Hours UTC)  
>(GARM R&amp;D Facility, Mendel Colony)<p>

"Diana! Yo! You in there?" A stack of papers were waved in her direction, which was enough visual reference to catch her attention.

Diana Trimes stopped, braced her mop against her shoulder, and pulled the noise-cancelling earphones she was wearing. "Neil? What's up?" She asked after a second.

"Hey, found this. Figured you'd want to see it ASAP so you could plan ahead for it." Neil, one of the technicians for the GARM facility, handed over a flyer.

"Lacus Clyne, in concert, here?" Diana scrunched her forehead in something approaching a frown, but to anyone that knew her, she never frowned since she arrived in Mendel. "I didn't think she liked Mendel. At all."

"Her boyfriend definitely doesn't see eye to eye with us," Neil groused. "Her? Dunno what her opinion is."

"Well, if she's doing a concert, I'll definitely go," Diana said. She wasn't a mega-fan as some of the other teens around GARM were, she preferred synthpop and techno over straight pop, but seeing an international superstar such as Lacus in action would be an opportunity best not missed.

"Figured you'd want in. I know a guy that has tickets right now, want me to squeeze him for a set?"

"Hell with that," an approaching lady said as she moved around Neil. "I know the guy you're referencing, and he'd ask for some bed time for 'em."

"Not happening," Diana said quickly and directly. "I don't play that way, and I wouldn't play that way if I was ten years older. You know anyone that has tickets, Yuna?"

"I have a set, got 'em because I know the venue manager. We'll discuss options when Neil gets over his heartbreak," Yuna said with a sickeningly-sweet smile. The implication was that Neil would not be going on her ticket, but Yuna was a generally nice person and probably would take him along.

"Sweet. I'll be done in an hour or so, get together then?" Diana asked. She wasn't the only GARM resident-student that did janitorial work, but Yuna was not in that list. Yuna worked in the server rooms with Diana's old friend Veruna Daniels.

"Bet on it," Yuna said. "Sorry for delaying the mopping. How do you stand the smell of that stuff?" she asked.

"I had the Janitor Sup order pine-scented heavy cleaner. It helps," Diana said sardonically.

"Later!" Yuna waved as she walked away, her mid-back dark blue hair partially getting in the way of the gesture. Diana shrugged it off, folded and stowed the flyer in her cargo pants, strapped her headphones back on, rewound two songs, and returned to the mopping. She would not get to complete the song again, but this time for a wildly different reason than an interruption by friends.

-x-

Jonathon Trimes had been directed to GARM by a local businessman, who said that GARM was used as something of an induction facility for refugee kids without parents. He also gave him locations on two other Creche locations in the colony, since the businessman routinely scouted the facilities for talent for his engineering bureau.

GARM was not hard to find, nor was the little 'missing foot memorial'. Jonathon had no clue what caused the memorial, but the inscription on it wasn't really funny. The front doors were visible from the memorial, but they both had to steel themselves to enter. The front doors had two full-armor Marines standing sentry with a wide array of weps, most of them geared toward infantry threats.

Cecilia hoped she walked past the Marines without looking too scared of them. So far the two had managed to avoid most of the armored personnel, but Mendel military persons were all over the place and could not be avoided. They had also come close to a lot of APCs, which was not particularly surprising given the way Mendel tended to think.

Inside, GARM looked like a different world from the rest of the colony. The central spire of the facility was prominent, as was a complete lack of entrances to the spire from the ground floor; it had been featured in several documentaries around Ulen Hibiki's work, about how the mad scientist of Mendel had come so close to having a full-up facility like what the Magi and the Clans of Kerensky used.

"Well, where do we start?" Cecilia asked after a moment.

"I really don't want to ask, but we may have to. Who knows what's in this place?" Jonathon groused.

"I will ask — huh?" Cecilia said, looking at one of the facility janitors. The manner of dress was wildly off for Diana — she was wearing a plain long-sleeve shirt and plain cargo pants, and the typical ball-cap hat worn backwards was atrocious — but the headphones and bouncing to the music made it obvious. Even after a few moments, the two parents had a look in profile at their daughter, though both also noticed the tactical leg holster and the (presumably real) pistol in it. "Jon, there," and Cecilia nodded to Diana even as she continued mopping the floors.

"That makes it easy. Let's go," Jonathon said.

Even as they walked past the lobby desk, people took notice of them and they took notice of the other people around them. The lobby receptionist told them to halt, but Jonathon simply pointed at her and told her to stay out of this. It would be his last mistake in this endeavor.

-x-

Diana did not notice the persons coming up behind her, but the Star Captain training her on small arms did. "Diana! On your six!" he shouted, easily loud enough to be heard past her music.

Diana's reaction was the typical one she used. Since the only people that tried sneaking up behind her while mopping were some of the younger kids trying to gig her, and none of them liked the business end of her mop, she simply swung at about their waist height with the intention of slapping them with her soggy, smelly mop. It was considered something of a game or a rite of passage to try to gig a janitor without getting slapped by the mop (or any other tool in their hand), and a couple instructors considered it bonus credit on their physical scores.

What target her mop found was the left leg of some lady she didn't immediately recognize, though the strike still managed to bring her down with a loud yelp. "The hell?" Diana asked nobody in particular as she yanked her headphones.

"What the — you!" the guy stepped forward, hand raised to slap her, which caused Diana to reflexively position the mop handle to take the blow. It did work, temporarily, until the guy wrenched the mop from her hand.

By the time of the angry declaration, Diana had an idea who she was looking at. She relinquished the mop readily, giving her father a brief distraction while she went for her radio lapel mike. "What the hell? Dad? What are you doing here?"

"We're here to take you back, Diana, but first, for hitting your mom," he broke the mop handle over his leg and dropped aside the business end. With the reduced-size wooden stick in hand, he brandished it as one would brandish a bat.

"Oh shit," Diana said. This was a scenario she had gone over in her head dozens of times before this day, given that her father had an aggressive streak and was not likely to let her walk away clean. In full analysis, Diane did not want to go back to the Earth Alliance for any reason, and certainly did not want to get shanghaied to go back. The refugee-turned-janitor activated the radio she always carried for her janitor duties, but the frequency was monitored by the Marines just in case they were needed as well. "Command, Lobby Janitor, tangos in the lobby! Repeat, tangos in the lobby! Two marks!"

It only took two seconds for the alert klaxon to go off and several red lights to activate. With her declaration, the Star Captain came forward with his pistol drawn as Diana continued to drop back, her hand on her own pistol but not drawn. He was not the only armed person in the room, as four Armored Marines stood guard in the lobby and all four were on the move before the klaxons even began.

"Stay behind me, kid!" the Star Captain shouted over the klaxons, even as a Marine took position between the Star Captain and the threat axis, his massive shield ample protection for both janitor and soldier.

"Tango! Drop the weapon!" Another Armored Marine shouted, this one with a lit beam saber brandished against her father. If the scenario had not been so frightening, Diana would have considered her dad wielding a stick facing off against a Marine with a beam saber to be comical.

"Oh, shit," Diana barely heard her father moan when he realized he was effectively surrounded by the Marines he had done his best to avoid.

"Kill the klaxons," an older voice ordered. Within three seconds, the alarms were deactivated. "What the flying fuck is going on here?" Star Colonel Wilhelm half-shouted over the assorted noises in the room. Even more Marines were approaching, as well as unarmored personnel with arms. "Who the fuck are you two jackwagons?"

"Jonathon Trimes, I'm here to reclaim my daughter."

"Wait, what? Reclaim her?" Star Colonel Wilhelm looked past the Marine nearest him, to where Diana was half-crouched behind a Star Captain of Mobile Suits. "All right, Diana, are these friends of yours?"

Diana partially straightened up, though Wilhelm noted her hand did not come off her pistol. "Sir, I'd like to officially not claim them, for the record, sir. I requested asylum among the Magi for a reason, and this is it."

"What? That's null and void, you're not old enough — "

"Shut up," Wilhelm ordered sharply, which caused both of them to stifle for a moment.

"And she's a citizen of the Atlantic Federation — "

"I said shut up, asshole, are you deaf as well as dumb?" Wilhelm asked curtly of Diana's father.

"I'm taking my daughter home, whether you space-monsters like it or not. You can't stop me," Jonathon said darkly.

"Oh? I can't stop you?" A Star Commander of Marines asked rhetorically. "Dumbass, you have sixty tons of combat personnel standing around, aiming guns and beam sabers at your svashri hide. You so much as twitch incorrectly and I'll personally blow your sorry ass to Mars," he said with an evil intonation.

"Hell with this shit," Wilhelm said with a clear tone of frustration. "If the asshole won't drop the stick, tase 'em until he grows a brain."

"Aff, Star Colonel." The guard with the beam saber deactivated and racked his weapon, then raised his arm. Underneath his wrist was a short-range grapnel, commonly called a Heat Rod by the Zeon inventors of it. When the trooper snapped his wrist up, the grapnel fired by gas pressure and latched onto Jonathon's waist. Normally it was used to electrocute armored foes, but it could also be set to tase an unarmored target.

Diana saw her father drop to the floor, every muscle in his body tensed up from the 1.25 million volts running through his body. Two other troopers closed in to secure and render compliant, with handcuffs and leg shackles to make sure he was not going anywhere. Her mother was thoroughly intimidated and made no move to resist; she was cuffed, but not leg-shackled.

After her father was standing and under control of a Star Commander of Marines, he asked only one question. "Why, Diane?"

Diane stepped out from behind the military personnel, grateful for the defense. "You gave me a choice, some months ago, when you signed me up to Blue Cosmos Boot Camp. I had to choose between my friends and your love of hatred. I made my choice. Three months from now, I go in for basic training and training in ground armor. And you made your choice, today, father. Be sure to play nice with the Marines, they can be a bit rough."

The Janitor simply stood and watched as her parents were frog-marched out of the building to a waiting APC. Her reaction was probably overkill, given that a tango call in GARM also engendered a rapid-reaction from nearby Marine barracks, but it was also the only thing that came to mind when her father brandished the haft of her mop at her.

-x-x-x-

(16 February CE 73, 1000 Hours Lima (UTC-5))  
>(Earth Alliance Garrison, Fort Knox, Kentucky, Atlantic Federation Territory)<p>

Colonel Park looked out across his subordinates, and figured he had a chance to get them in shape before the balloon went up. He was new to the North American theater, which was largely untouched in the first war, but Colonel Park figured that would not hold true this time around. He needed to make sure his men were ready for it.

"This is where it gets real, people," Colonel Lin Park noted to the assembled officers and men. "For over a year now, we've considered that the Magi forces in nation are considering actions to compromise Earth Alliance interests. As of right now, we have no real reason to believe that they hold anything for us except hostile intent. This ship," he advanced the projector to the next graphic, "is the Girty Lue, a new class of warship built around heavy-gun capability and anti-fighter capabilities with the inclusion of 38 VLS missile silos. This was supposed to be the crown jewel of our bringing them to heel, in compliance with the wishes of earth."

When he advanced the projector, a murmur came up from the gathered personnel. It was summed up by a single comment: "Those mother-fucking space monsters," a Warrant Officer commented.

"That is the long and short of it, people. This shot is four days old, brought to us by a tourist who snapped a picture of an unknown warship and posted an inquiry to a forum of armchair admirals. I nearly shat bricks when I saw it laying bare for the whole world to see, and more to the point in the hands of Mendel. Word is that Admiral Sutherland has been ripping asses nonstop since we found out about the capture through such circuitous methods."

"If they've got the ship, sir, what does it have to do with us? We're primarily ground forces, sir," a Lieutenant asked plaintively.

"And that is the name of the game, oddly enough," Colonel Park responded elliptically. "Regardless of what we may think of them, we have every reason to believe that Mendel is not lying about their history — they are older than dirt, and they have beat plenty of asses along that way. As such, we have to consider their philosophies have some validity, as well as their truisms. One of the more striking things we have learned from their bondsmen is the philosophies of space combat and space-to-ground campaigning. They live by an operational creed: 'a war is influenced in space, a war is won on the surface of a planet'. This is critical here: they can pin us on the planet's surface, they can even bombard us from space, but they cannot break us without putting troops on the ground. Thus, the necessity of being prepared on the ground outweighs space actions."

"Is that not defeatist, sir? They are not omnipresent in space...or omnipotent," a Captain of the Infantry asked.

"Omnipresent, no, certainly not. In fact, the maximum amount of ships they can field, after refitting the civilian _Garm_-class ships, is eleven. On the other hand, six of those ships are well in excess of anything we can deal with on a 1-for-1 basis, and one of their ships is nigh unstoppable even by the _Archangel_-class ships. Omnipotent they are not, but for all intents and purposes they are close enough to it to be unstoppable by us. We will lose in space. We will lose badly in space. It will not really matter. The Earth Alliance loses its ability to project power, true, but we cannot be defeated as-is here on the ground, and that fact makes this campaign a stalemate. For the next, I turn it over to my assistant, Major Wilcox."

The Major stood up and took over the lectern. "As we all have work to do, I will make this short. Our orders are to prepare for imminent ground attack by Mendel forces. We do not know when they will bring it, but they have to bring it by the bent of their intention. They have already showed clear hostile intent by capturing the _Girty Lue_. They constantly electronically sweep the surface of the moon. They move forces in and out of the debris belt almost at random. They are planning something; we need to figure out what and we need to be ready to counter it."

"Where are their expected invasion points, sir?"another Major asked.

Colonel Park handled this answer. "We expect they will land in USSA territory and move north, forcing a limited front by terrain, or they will land in Oceania and cooperate with ZAFT on a campaign against the Eurasian Federation. We need to be ready for both scenarios."

"Aye, sir!" the same Major replied.

"With the increasing pace of domestic sabotage operations, you also need to keep a clear eye out for saboteurs," a Captain of MPs noted. "They've hit us a few good times. These are not greenhorns we are dealing with. Be ready for anything."

"Stand!" the Major ordered. All the personnel were on their feet immediately.

"All commanders return to units and begin preparations for force movements. I want plans to move your sub-units out in place no later than 1600 tomorrow. I want your units ready to move or deploy in no more than 72 hours." Colonel Park sighed mightily. "I know it is unreasonable to say it, but if Mendel lands overnight we need to be ready to move on a moment's notice. Less than half the Earth command really understands what they are facing, and it will be the smart half's job to unscrew the situation when the biological output and the ventilation impeller conflict with each other." The crowd had a good chuckle for the Colonel's comment, some for the blatant misuse of political correct speech, the rest for the implied insult to the leadership above them all.

"Dismissed."

After the troops filed out, only the Colonel and the Major remained. "You really think they are going to try, boss?"

"They have to, Wilcox. If they do not do something to us on the ground, we keep harassing them until they fold." Again, Lin Park sighed, but this one was a resigned sigh, weariness manifest in his being. "I just hope I am right, and they can be stopped by the numbers. If not, we'll all be learning Japanese as a second language."

-x-x-x-

(17 February, 0600 UTC)  
>(ZAFT Orbital Observatory, Colony Aprilius 6)<p>

"Well, check my math, puke, I know I'm not wrong." The female operator handed off a clipboard and pushed away from the terminal so the other operator could slide in.

It only took thirty seconds. "Oh shit, you're not wrong. Supervisor, we have a situation here!"

"What is it?" the supervisor asked.

"Sir, I think it's moving. And it may be accelerating on it's turn in toward the planet."

"Oh, shit," the supervisor groused. He was not the only person in the earth sphere that had the same thing to say about this incident.

-x-

(17 February, 0610 UTC)  
>(NORAD, North America, Atlantic Federation territory)<p>

ZZZ — BEGIN XMIT — ZZZ

FROM: COBRA DANE RADAR FACILITY, SHEMYA, ALASKA  
>TO: EARTH ALLIANCE NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND<br>RE: CRITIC WARNING OBJECT DESCENT FROM DEBRIS BELT

ALERT ALERT ALERT

DEBRIS OBJECT JUNIUS SEVEN DETECTED SHIFT OF COURSE FROM STABLE ORBIT TO DESCENT TRAJECTORY. NOTE COBRA DANE SUSPECTS DELIBERATE ACTION MOVE JUNIUS SEVEN, AS RATE OF DESCENT CONTINUES TO INCREASE OUTSIDE EXPECTED INFLUENCE OF GRAVITY. NO OBJECTS OF SIGNIFICANCE OR HIGH-ENERGY EVENTS HAVE BEEN DETECTED IN VICINITY TO ROGUE OBJECT.

RECOMMEND MOBILIZE ANY POSSIBLE ASSETS TO INTERCEPT OR BREAK UP OBJECT. PRESENT CALCULATION OF DESCENT ESTIMATE STRIKE EUROPE OR MIDDLE EAST. ESTIMATE DAMAGE GLOBAL ANNIHILATION OF 80 PERCENT OF HUMANITY OR GREATER, WITH NUCLEAR WINTER EFFECTS FOR NO LESS THAN 20 YEARS.

GOD HELP THOSE IN THE IMPACT AREA.

ZZZ — END XMIT — ZZZ

-x-

(17 February, 0615 UTC)  
>(Orb Military Defense Headquarters, Onogoro Island)<p>

XXX — BEGIN TRANSMISSION — XXX

FROM: ORB STATION AME NO MIHASHIRA

TO: ORB DEFENSE HEADQUARTERS

RE: UNUSUAL ACTIVITY DETECTED VICINITY OF JUNIUS SEVEN DROP

PRIORITY ONE TRAFFIC / EYES ONLY SENIOR ADMINISTRATION AND MILITARY PERSONNEL

AME NO MIHASHIRA HAS DETECTED UNKNOWN / UNREGISTERED MOBILE SUITS AND MOBILE WORKER EQUIPMENT VICINITY OF JUNIUS SEVEN PRIOR TO DROP OPERATION. CONFIRM THIS IS NOT REPEAT NOT A NATURAL EVENT. SCOUT ASTRAY UNIT DISPATCHED WAS FIRED UPON PRIOR TO VISUAL, THOUGH NOTED A PLURALITY OF GLOWING LIGHTS ON THE FORMER CENTRAL CORE TETHERS OF THE JUNIUS SEVEN RUINS. POSSIBLE USE ENGINE SYSTEMS UNKNOWN CLASSIFICATION TO MOVE JUNIUS SEVEN OUT OF ORBIT.

AME NO MIHASHIRA DOES NOT HAVE ASSETS CAPABLE OF CLEARING AREA. RECOMMEND REQUEST ASSISTANCE FROM MENDEL TO CLEAR AREA FOR POSSIBLE DEMOLITION OR ORBITAL SHIFT.

PRESENT ESTIMATE OF DESCENT EUROPE, FIRST IMPACT POSSIBLE ITALY. ESTIMATE DAMAGE NO LESS THAN 60 PERCENT ANNIHILATION OF LIVING PERSONS ON PLANET, AND PLANET WILL BE RENDERED UNINHABITABLE.

LADY RONDO MINA SAHAKU SENDS REGARDS AND LUCK.

XXX — END TRANSMISSION — XXX

-x-

(17 February, 0620 UTC)  
>(Mendel Administration Building, Mendel Colony, L4 Colony Group)<p>

"Star Admiral, I have priority traffic from Orb for you, sir!" Galaxy Commander Rico said hurriedly. "You're not going to believe this shit, sir."

"Bring it," Wayne ordered curtly. "Gerald, what is the status of the _Thrones_?" Wayne asked a growler phone.

"We're loading up now, and that includes me. My Physalis is rated for nuclear release, and with the rest of the NEST team we have a good chance to do this right. I'll need both _Dominion_ and _Thrones_ to punch holes, though, so we're all going."

"Do you have enough warheads?" Wayne asked as he received the flash traffic from Orb.

"Yeah, we have enough 250 and 500-meggers to do the job."

"Oh, shit," Wayne groused after he got halfway through the message.

"Now what?" Century Commander Lightbringer asked.

"Ame No Mihashira identified hostile machines in the area of the tombstone," Wayne said coldly. "Nobody believed this was natural, but I didn't think anyone was so fucking omnicidal as to render Terra uninhabitable."

"Wonderful. Fucking wonderful. We're at a whole new level of asshattery and terrorism here, boss. I recommend we hit them hard and fast."

"Aff. I'll send Diamond Element in ahead of you to clear the grounds."

"Damn good, sir. I've got business, I'm out." the radio-to-phone link cut a moment later.

"Rico, get on the horn to the _Mjolnr_, have them sortie Diamond Element, move to Junius Seven, clear all opposition and destroy whatever engines they are using to shift the colony, then have them stand by to assist demolition of the colony remnant. This is a priority mission, they are to ignore all other traffic until the job is done."

"Aff, sir, but wouldn't that — "

"Fuck the treaty," Wayne said sharply. "We don't have time for someone else's personal shit, and neither does the planet they are presently standing on." Wayne relented, with a grim chuckle to go along. "Ironic, that. Technically, the force necessary to save their arses has been rendered illegal by the treaty they pushed so hard. Hope they don't mind us breaking the rules, since we're out to save their asses at this time."

-x-

(17 February, 0645 UTC)  
>(Outside Mendel SDIZ)<p>

"Diamond Element, Diamond Zero, attention to orders!" the Star Captain of Diamond Element ordered sharply.

"SIR!" Ten voices shouted in unison.

"This mission is a priority-one rapid deploy defensive engagement. It takes precedence over every other consideration you have, up to and including your lives. Magi don't issue those kinds of orders often, so any of you greenhorns had best pay attention. Follow?"

"I am listening, Lead," Diamond 8 answered curtly. She was the newest hand in the unit, but not by much.

"Within the past several hours, someone has begun shifting the orbit of the Junius Seven wreckage to a collision course for Terra. We don't know who these dezgra are, but they are threatening mass murder on a scale that would have given Hitler a boner. Now, this is not an end-of-the-world scenario, yet. Lightbringer has a plan for annihilating a goodly portion of the colony remnants and slagging down the remainder to the point of it being relatively harmless. His men cannot execute this plan if they are being shot at. Our orders are to enter the ruins of Junius Seven, clear all opposition, and destroy the engines they are using to move the debris. If it lives, make sure it does not live for long, quiaff?"

"Aff, sir!" Diamond 8 answered.

"This objective is strategic. You are released full arsenal and unlimited engagement profile. There shall be no zellbrigen for these pukes; send them all to hell." Diamond Zero ordered savagely.

-x-x-x-

(17 February CE 73, 1030 Hours UTC)  
>(Debris Belt Shoal Zone, nearby Junius Seven Graveyard)<p>

"Diamond Element, Diamond Zero, we have passed line of departure. Weapons are hot, all restrictions have been released. You are cleared to engage," the Element Commander ordered sharply. His subordinates responded in sequence to acknowledge the orders.

"Diamond Zero, Diamond Five, I have LOS to the tango. I count 100-plus flare motors on the central column tethers."

"Say again last," Diamond Zero ordered by rote, though his was shock at hearing the number, not a failure of reception.

"One-zero-zero minimum Flare Motors detected on target debris, sir," Diamond Five answered curtly.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, there stand your priority targets. And any Mobile Suits foolhardy enough to try us," Diamond Zero said with a savage tone of voice. He switched radio channels to the main C3 Rebroadcast, which would make it to the Forrestal in debris cleanup orbit and from there back to the _Mjolnr_. "Command, Diamond Element, Diamond Zero reporting confirmed artificial event with flare motors detected at target. We are 9-0 seconds from engagement at this time, stand by for further."

Diamond 8 — Padmavati Jungstrand, an inductee from the Equatorial Union and fanatical convert — decided she'd let the senior personnel handle the Flare Motors unless she got a clear shot at them. The dezgra dogs that set Junius Seven in motion were likely still about, and she wanted them plastered by her own hand. Every mission had its objectives and necessities, but interference from active enemies would wreck the operation quickly. She wanted to avoid that at all costs.

"Diamond Element, Command, engage at will. 2 hours until the _Dominion_ and _Thrones_ are on scene."

"You heard the boss, two hours. It's enter and clear! Hit the colony at attack speed!" The Star Captain was fast to put actions to words, when he pushed his throttle down to the 60 percent mark and maneuvered around a stray structural chunk to line up on the colony itself. "Looks like the colony will be clear of the debris belt in about thirty minutes."

"Sounds about right, boss," Diamond Two noted. "Whoa, I have sensors on the colony, valid targets! Rally Kupo! One o'clock low!"

"What the fuck?" Diamond Four asked. "Shouldn't that be 'Tally Ho'?"

"Don't ask. Seriously, it'll cook your brain," Diamond Zero noted. "I have them. All units, launch two canisters, make sure they prioritize Mobile Suits. Save your clusters and chain mines for the flare motors."

"You say so, sir," Diamond Four responded, referencing the unusual tango call. "I have two canisters locked, launching now!"

"Fox Two!" Padmavati half-shouted as she dispensed with two canisters of her own. Her shots joined sixteen other Micromissile Canisters heading downrange, a total of 1,944 missiles heading in the general direction of the enemy on Junius Seven.

The wars of the past that necessitated the use of Micromissile canisters had also lent a significant upgrade stack to those weapons and their launching platforms. Each missile had been upgraded with advanced targeting features, allowing it to pick out the Mobile Suits even if they were stationary or hiding in background clutter. Improved engines and thrusters allowed for better targeting profile. And an improved warhead reduced the amount of missiles per target required to assure a kill. On the flip side, not all the missiles tracked a target or guided properly, the hazard of low-cost mass-manufacture ordinance combined with a cluttered threat landscape full of random debris.

Even with the re-shredding of debris, the 18-canister salute netted at least 33 kills or damaged enemies, not including the Flare Motors struck and rendered inop. "Prepare beam rifles and beam sabers, close in and finish them off. Diamond Two, Three, Four, you are to begin destroying the Flare Motors!"

"Aff!" Said pilots broke off from the other six machines and changed course toward the tethers.

"The _Dominion_ approaches! Let's clear the skies for the order of angels and the nuclear solution they bring!" Diamond Seven shouted. Her opening position was the mega beam cannon, a weapon more suited to peeling battleships than Mobile Suits, but it still had the intended effect of erasing an enemy machine from the stars. "Contact close! Unidentified variant of the GINN MS!"

"They're derivatives of the High-Maneuver type," Diamond Zero said. "Keep an eye on — "

"SHI — " Diamond Three half-shouted, before her link cut out directly and with a loud crackle.

"Fuck me!" Diamond Two exclaimed. "Three just flew sideways into one of the tethers, sir! She's painless," he said.

"Gods damnit!" Diamond Zero groused. "We're clearing the colony now, wheel around for another pass! And watch out for debris!"

Diamond Eight did not do her turn laterally, instead she made her loop vertical so she came back in on the same attack vector as she departed the area. The expected process was to loop wide and attack from a different direction — sometimes, thinking like a normal military officer made one predictable, she had learned quickly.

When she cleared the continental shelf of the dead colony, she immediately vectored down toward the surface and applied thrust, so she jetted over it at an angle rising away from the surface but was still facing it. Her maneuver was prescient; not only did she dodge part of an old _Drake_-class ship, she was able to drop two more canisters (her last) and she watched another seven enemy machines bite it from the mass of missiles. "Zero, Eight, vector high, repeat, vector high, they're preparing to swarm in low!"

"Too late! Mow through!" Diamond Zero shouted. From her vantage point, she could see the expert beam rifle work of her comrades but she could also see the telltale flashes of beams striking the I-Fields on the Dendrobium armors.

"NO!" Diamond Seven shouted before something blew laterally on her armor. "Zero, Seven, I'm going in!" Padmavati did not see her friend go in, but the static burst on the comm channel was evidence enough that it was a hard hit.

"They got her with a sword! Now wha — " A third burst of static presaged another kill.

"Six just flew into debris, keep your damn eyes open!" Zero ordered.

"Who has canisters left?" Diamond One asked.

"I'm empty, Eight is empty," Padmavati said. "I'm switching to beam cannon and beam rifle, and shooting from range," she said.

"Neg, I am diverting you to the Flare Motors, Padma," Diamond Zero ordered. "If the colony continues its course change, Terra will not survive."

"Aff, lead," Padmavati groused. She wanted to make sure the ground was clear, but the order was logical. "Two, Four, what are your positions?"

"We're looping in for our third pass. Turn your auto-shootlist on and do what you can, girl! We'll worry about the rest!"

"Aff," Padmavati vectored in high, and once she cleared the debris ring around the descent corridor her sensors were able to track in on each of the Flare Motors. "Two, Four, I'm taking stationary position above the colony and shooting down. I can angle to almost all the motors from up here."

"Roger that," Diamond Two said. "May the denizens of this desolate tombstone forgive us!"

"OH FU — " Diamond Zero half-shouted before his signal went blank.

"They got Lead! Shot his Stamen at point-blank! The lousy bastards!" Diamond Five groused.

"These guys are damn near aces!" Diamond Four wailed.

"We've almost completed our objective," Padmavati said curtly. "The Flare Motors are our target. _Dominion_ has a complement of close-quarters machines to take care of the rest. Do not falter!"

"Aff!" Diamond One said. "Fox Two on the Mobile Suits!"

Padmavati could see the MS shred apart as they inadvertently bunched up near the lake part of the ruins. Still, she focused nearer to herself, even as Diamond Five screeched before his Dendrobium exploded from the rear; doubtless, an enterprising enemy had shot him through the dual-stage fusion reactor and vented it into the rest of the machine. She squinted against the tears, the thought of the loss of her friends and comrades, but she still had a mission and this was an operation that the mission explicitly outranked her life.

Diamond Eight released two chain mines, weapons designed for destroying ships primarily, and let them weave in among the tethers. Two mines were able to destroy nearly three dozen of the flare motors, given they were grouped so close together and the chain mines were long chains of EFP (1) anti-armor charges it would only take one blast to kill a motor. "We've got more than half of them!"

"And they have two-thirds of us," Diamond Two groused as the contact for Diamond One dropped off, likely by way of a debris collision. "Four, when you next pass through the tethers, eject your canisters and have them vector down to silence some more of the enemy MS."

"Got it!" Padmavati watched the radar contact for Diamond Four approach the tethers. "Oh shit, abort! They're up here!"

"What?" Diamond Two broke hard right and hammered his engine, allowing him to clear. Diamond Four had no such options, and Padmavati could see the collision between the Dendrobium and one of these customized GINN units. The impact sheared off his starboard weapons container, which mass imbalance drove him to port and into one of the tethers. "DAMNIT!"

"We're it, Two," Diamond Eight said. "I track 38 motors remaining. Come up here and snipe down," Padmavati said, even though she had no authority to issue orders to him.

"On my way," Two groused. From her vantage point, Padmavati had no trouble picking off the approaching Mobile Suits with beam rifle and mega beam cannon, and when not at threat she was able to shoot at the motors. "How many of these fuckers are there?"

"Not many left, I count about a dozen, and thirty flare motors. If we fight smart, we have this won."

-x-x-x-

(17 February CE 73, 1230 Hours UTC)  
>(Low Orbit Reaches, nearby descending Junius Seven remnant)<p>

"Listen up! Diamond Element has cleared the colony, but they paid in blood for it. Of the nine-machine Diamond Element, only two survived and one of them is damaged. They are still in the area, trying to chop apart the central column tethers with their anti-ship beam sabers. Our job is to get in, direct Lohengrin fire from the ships, and plant our devices," Captain Jamestown gave out the overview of the mission.

Gerald Lightbringer picked up where the Captain fell off. "NEST Element, each of you will be issued two antimatter limpet mine shells for your nuclear bazookas. _Dominion_ Element, you will go in full arms and cover the NEST operators. They cannot be interrupted during this process or bad things happen. Are we good to go?"

"Oh hell yes, sir!" Clotho said. "Nothing like the crunch-time of a timer to go along with an objective smash level!"

"Nope, yours is the escort mission, Clotho," Operator Flay Allster noted with a sweet voice.

"Eh, whatever," the frequent gamer groused. "Escort, nuclear demo, boss battles, all good for me and bad for them."

"We are approaching the objective now, all Mobile Suits are to be launched immediately." Captain Freeman ordered from the lead ship of the task force, the _Thrones_.

"This is Lightbringer on _Dominion_ Right, awaiting launch clearance," Gerald Lightbringer said. "_Dominion_, do you have a shot at any of the target points yet?"

"Aff, I am firing now," Jamestown said. "You are cleared for launch, Gerald. Gods' speed in this endeavor."

"It shall be," Gerald assured him before he jammed the throttle to the mechanical stop. Clotho was the second machine to deploy from the Dominion, though the Thrones launched a Wing Zero and a Sazabi Gundam as their opening deployment. In all reality, the NEST forces would be last to deploy, as their services would not be needed until _Dominion_ and _Thrones_ bored the necessary holes in the surface of the colony to do the job.

"This is Wheel Four, reporting ZERO sees multiple enemy contacts hiding inside the ruins. Diamond Element would have never seen them there," the pilot of the Wing Zero reported.

"Wheel Three, I can see their locations by your mindwaves, Four. Give me a second to mop some floor," The Sazabi loosed four of its funnels to streak down into the ruins of Junius Seven. In close, the enemies hiding and waiting for them had no knowledge of what was hitting them, only that their hidden forces were now under attack.

"I have this cluster," Wheel Four aimed his Buster Rifle at a partially-demolished structure, under which was hiding three GINN suits and two worker pods. A two-second burst was all that was needed to flatten the structure, core out the basement under it, and of course kill off the enemy machines. "Thrones, Wheel Four reporting should be clear now. ZERO is not seeing anything else."

"Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups, pilot," Gerald rebuked him sharply. "I can sense more tangos in the vicinity. All pilots, be on your best guard."

"Aff, Century Commander," Wheel Four answered for his error. "I offer surkai, and shall not make the same mistake again."

"Just sweep and clear, pilot. Stay clear of the lines of fire from the ships." In point of fact, _Dominion_ fired its first volley of Lohengrin, a single cannon on a short burst, into the outer rim area of the colony. Thrones was not far behind, servicing its first target after Diamond Two cleared out of the way to give it a clean shot.

"Whoa, holy shit," Shani gaped as the beam punched partway into the colony, but not all the way through even in the thinner outer areas. "Why not all the way through, sir?"

"Demolition tactics, kid," Gerald answered. "A firecracker in an open box will scorch the box. A firecracker in a sealed box will burst the box. We want the colony shredded to small bits, so the Lohengrins have less work to do and the rubble burns up in flight."

"I get it, heh," Shani said in his usual creepy monotone.

The _Dominion_ maneuvered briefly to get its second firing position, though the _Thrones_ beat it to the second shot by a few seconds. The operations plan called for ten devices around the outer ring of the continent, and four devices in the center area of the colony. On the inside the colony, there was no mobile-suit portable weapon capable of doing the necessary damage, even in antimatter devices. As much damage as they expected to cause, though, the _Dominion_ and _Thrones_ would have little work to do after the 'firecrackers' went off.

Gerald carried the four devices necessary for the inside, 500 megaton devices. Each of the NEST Operators carried smaller 250-megaton devices, to cause subatomic annihilation but without too much extra blast that could cause problems in the atmosphere. The total throw weight for the operation was 4.5 gigatons, literally more explosive force than had been used in all wars since the invention of Gunpowder on the planet they were rapidly approaching. It would also be necessary to ensure not much remained of the colony when all was said and done.

"NEST One deploying now," Kingfisher declared just before he took his cat-shot to clear the Thrones.

"This is Lightbringer, I have touched down on the colony. _Dominion_, status?"

"Just finished drilling pilot hole four, once I get my fifth I will switch over to the center holes."

"Make 'em deep, these devices work best no more than 200 meters from the exterior surface," Cobalt said.

"Last pilot hole on the outside now," Captain Freeman declared. "All NEST operators, begin planting your devices now."

-x-

"Sanchez, they're here," his lieutenant said over the wired communication link. They knew better than to transmit in the open with Mendel units about.

"I see them. Go for the beige machines with the large shields, if possible. Those will be the demolition units, like they did with GENESIS."

"It's the same team, all right," Nokomis groused. "We have to make sure the tombstone falls!"

"All sections, launch!" Sanchez ordered.

From various holding locations around the colony, what remained of the Junius Seven Guard deployed from the concealed positions. In total, the remaining forces were some two dozen units of the hundred-plus Mobile Suits and Worker Pods. Nine enemy Mobile Armors had shredded down 90 percent of a force of veterans and elite former-ZAFT pilots, though they paid dearly for their mission. Only two of the Mobile Armors remained from that unit, a better record than ZAFT achieved with far greater forces at Jachin Due.

"For the deceased! You butchers will not interfere!" His lieutenant shouted on an open radio band.

"What the hell? Tangos!" an enemy responded immediately.

"I've got them," a different enemy responded.

Sanchez had the fortune of launching nearby one of the enemy demolition machines, and he simply rammed his sword through the cockpit until the hilt stopped it. "You damned butchers will not interfere! My daughter's tombstone must fall!" Sanchez shouted over the same open radio band.

"So much angst, coming from someone who would give Hitler a hard-on with this action," one of the enemy pilots retorted sharply. "Wheel Guard, Wing Guard, there's only two dozen. Prevent further damage to the demo teams!"

"Too late!" one of the enemies shouted.

"Got a second of the demo suit — " Nokomis never completed the sentence, as an enemy machine dropped him hard with a scythe.

"I have their leader," Sanchez said, even as his forces dwindled down below ten remaining units.

"Neg, I have you, surat, I have you," Grald Lightbringer responded curtly. "Clotho, the bazooka on Cobalt's machine is still active. One target point remains. Swing around and deploy it!"

"Aff, sir!" Sanchez paid no heed to the machine that sped by him, only focused on the commander. he fired one beam, a second beam, then dropped his rifle aside for the secondary sword. Even as he continued closing, objects left the shield of the enemy machine and streaked wide, unseen after a brief moment's glimpse of them. With two seconds of flight time to the enemy machine, Sanchez's damage board went red on most systems, and fully red by one second close rate. The command machine simply diverted his disabled GINN into the side of a building, where it came to a crashing halt.

Ironically, Sanchez recognized it as the apartment building across the road from where he lived before the Earth Alliance nuked the colony. "I can sense you are still alive in there, Sanchez," Gerald Lightbringer said curtly, which still came through his radio (one of the few working systems on his machine). "You underestimated me, and you lost. You dropped Bane and Cobalt, two fine NEST operators, but the mission continues. You have failed categorically, and there is only one thing more odious than arrogance in Existence: failure."

"Remote weapons? I should have know, you cheating bastard," Sanchez groused. "Just finish the job and be done with it."

"Hell no, there is no such thing as a fair fight, there is only a fight you win and a fight you lose. I am not paid to lose, amigo. Tough rocks. As to your fate, I shall do nothing more to you. You can self-destruct your machine, or wait for an antimatter annihilation. I care not which."

"Boss, Clotho, last round over here is deployed."

"Gerald, Oruga, I have fired off Bane's last shot. I'll bring what's left of his Gundam in."

"Clotho, recover Cobalt's machine and return it to the _Thrones_. She will receive the Order of the Triad for this, as will Bane."

"You don't fucking get it, do you?" Sanchez said. "These monsters you are protecting have to die! The longer you wait, the more spacefarers die for your hesitation! Even your own people!"

Gerald sighed briefly. "I'll drop a hint on you, amigo. The Earth Alliance is not likely to survive the end of this year. They will not be dying by your hand, mind you, but they will die. And I intend to do it cleanly, that the denizens of Terra survive and can be reformed into an honorable state and later a just Empire, the same as we Magi started eons ago. I will prevent the tragedy of Junius Seven ever happening again, but I will prevent it with honor. You, today, die with no honor, no victory, no purpose. You are dezgra, and you shall die like one. _Requiescat in pace_."

Sanchez contemplated the self-destruct handle, but decided against. He figured he could get out of his MS here in a minute and attempt to disrupt one of their devices, maybe give his team a partial victory. He had no way of knowing he was hastening the destruction of the colony by doing so.

-x-

(10 Minutes later)

"Wait for it," Gerald said.

The fourteen devices were operating on a synchronized timer system that would detonate all the devices at once, causing the maximum amount of stress-fracturing and breakup possible in the debris. It was not an artful detonation, but sometimes the simple and brutal solution was required. "Make sure your sensors are locked down and your visual systems are set in nuclear exposure mode," Captain Jamestown ordered to all the machines.

"How long, Century Commander?" Diamond Two asked.

"190 seconds," Gerald said. "We should have nine hours on its present course to get the last of the debris."

"Rally Kupo! Never seen an antimatter blast this close, looking forward to it," Diamond Two half-shouted.

The entire comm channel was blank for ten seconds, until Clotho broke the silence. "Okay, I thought **I** was a hardcore gamer, but I think I just got smoked in two words flat."

"Final Fantasy 9," Diamond Two replied. "I had a bizarre father that named me Kefka, and I grew up playing the Final Fantasy series end to end. So I've got a few bad habits, give me a break," he explained.

"I can hose you on that," Gerald said.

"Try me, sir," Diamond Two answered, convinced that Gerald was bluffing.

Gerald chuckled at the Mobile Armor pilot. "Long ago, in my dark and spooky days, I was deposited on the wrong planet, in the wrong dimension, by a Gate Mage that was supposed to put me behind some enemy lines. Shit happens and all that. Took the Gate Mage a month to find my team, but in that month I had stumbled into a Moogle encampment and befriended them. Easiest month-long vacation-slash-survival incident I have ever had. Moogles do have the single dangling poms, but they vary in color from orange to red or purple, and a couple yellow ones. On an aside, Behemoths are also native to that planet, and they can tear apart a Mobile Suit if left unchecked."

"I would pay good money to see that video," Clotho said.

"Sorry, the video records are classified to the Division Commanders. I can give you the overview of the incident, but the detailed reports are no-go."

With 33 seconds still on the timer, the devices detonated. "What the — that was early!"

"Someone must have tried moving or dismantling one of the devices," Kingfisher noted.

Much as intended, the simultaneous blast of fourteen antimatter limpet mines caused three types of damage to the colony remnant. The first was the direct antimatter application, effectively annihilating portions of the colony at the sub-atomic level. The second form of damage was the direct blast damage from the antimatter, which pulverized everything in the way as the fourteen blast fronts shredded the colony. The number three damage factor was indirect, the result of having fourteen blast waves inside one solid object. The alternating stresses of blast damage caused shearing and fracturing on a massive scale, even as the blasts themselves ripped the colony asunder. As parts of the debris collided in the aftermath of the blasts, the fractures cracked and naturally broke apart the remaining debris to a large degree.

"Hot damn! Only thing left worth talking about is about four chunks! We've done it, Century Commander!" Kingfisher shouted.

"_Dominion_, _Thrones_, recover machines and prepare to close for the detail work. We're almost done here," Gerald ordered.

-x-x-x-

(12 June 2SL-12, 0900 hours)  
>(<em>Guild II-<em>class Dropship_ Bold Hands_, attached to Task Force Ancient Phoenix)  
>(11 Days after attack on the <em>Mjolnr<em>)

If anything, Ninyu Hrolfsen had no complaints whatsoever about the transfer methods the Commandos were using to horsepower their way through the typical 'Mickey Mouse Bullshit' that now hallmarked the Techstrikers. If any person in any of the commands wanted to sign up for the detail they were recruiting for, and a superior wanted to 'stiff' the transfer, the transferring personnel were assigned to the Commandos under the Fourth Division Preemption Clause and reassigned by order of the Commando recruiter. Such had happened to Ninyu, due to the nature of the ongoing fighting on the planet he was assigned to and the fact that his commander did not want to part with him or his Battlemech.

Thus, when Ninyu arrived on the Gate Pad (x) in the_ Bold Hands_, he knew this operation was laid on with some serious horsepower. Moving persons by way of Gate Mages, especially a Star Colonel with a single beat-up Banshee Damocles, onto locations specially prepared for the trip and_ backwards through time_ to get to the fleet, indicated that someone was breaking all the rules to run this operation. Time travel was frowned upon mightily, and the Magi internal military processes did not move personnel around by Gate Mages except in case of emergency; orders for something this monumental in scale had to come from on high, probably the Empress herself.

His odyssey began, oddly enough, two weeks into a future already written. After the_ Mjolnr_ was jumped, a campaign was began by the same assholes on the Magi planet Galdesse, a mostly-forest world with some industrial and commercial ventures. The campaign was the same as with the_ Mjolnr_ itself: a large, single-wave assault force of Mobile Dolls was loosed on the planet to cause as much destruction as possible.

Over ten thousand Mobile Dolls, split into four rough Corps formations of 2500 Mobile Dolls apiece, attacked Galdesse. The planetary garrison, a mere two galaxies of Infantry and two clusters of armor, barely held out for three days before they were overwhelmed. Then the Mobile Dolls turned their guns on the civilians, creating the single-greatest massacre of civilians in any of the six Star Empires in over 14,000 years. Ninyu's unit was one of the first to respond, and one of the first to pay with lives; the Mobile Dolls even knew to expect Dropships and to shoot them down whenever possible. Ninyu survived; his girlfriend and almost all of his unit did not.

"Star Captain Hrolfsen, this is bay control. You are to hangar in cubicle 2-alpha-44; you are cleared free movement ramp bravo-4 to transit levels."

"Aff, control," Ninyu answered in his usual clipped fashion. With movement orders heard and acknowledged, he put the destination in his navigation panel and it plotted waypoints and turns to get there. The mech bays were mostly empty thus far, but Ninyu figured that would not last long. This operation had far too much horsepower to be left in limbo for long. Ninyu estimated that the ship would be filled with Mechwarriors and their machines in less than three days.

Finding the ordered cube was not difficult; parking in it was even less so. Ninyu set his machine into 'transport' mode and climbed out onto the telescoping catwalk for pilots. Waiting for him was his new crew chief and Mechanic, just as was properly expected. "Banshee Damocles, rare hardware. Last time I saw one of those was Nagelring Technicians academy, about 22 years before the Second Star League was formed."

"Old hand," Ninyu commented, looking over the technician in question. Most of his face was obscured by a half-burned cigar and scraggly beard, but it wasn't hard to see the aging lines and old-world wisdom. Ninyu figured could not have asked for better.

"Aff, Star Captain. Michaelson's the name. 30 years active as a tech, lookin' forward to another forty or so. You?"

"Five on the line," Ninyu said as he leaned up against the catwalk rail. "Was a Star Colonel until my unit got shot down in transit. Took a demotion and lateral transfer to get here."

"Same crew that tore half your Battlemech off?" the mechanic asked. The engine was exposed to open air, the left side of the machine was gone from the Gauss Rifle mounts outward, the left hip was cocked at a weird angle, and the hatchet on his machine looked to have seen some very heavy use.

"Yeah," Ninyu said deadpan.

"Who?" the Mechanic asked.

"You know those assholes this mission is supposed to preempt?" Ninyu asked after a moment's pause for an Atlas assault 'mech to march by.

"Yeah, they bad mothers."

"I got to fight an undercard match against them. They as bad as command says they are."

The conversation took a brief hold as the two, the Assault 'mech pilot and the mechanic, watched a Gundam march by in a bay full of battlemechs. Specifically, it was a modified Heavyarms Custom/EW, not an uncommon machine among the Magi's ranks, but tweaked for the pilot and painted wildly different from the original used by Trowa Barton. Ninyu barely could make out the name on the cockpit access: Ami Hidaka, but the name didn't ring any bells for him so he shrugged it off.

"But we are definitely the baddest mo-fos in the Valley of the Shadow of Death," the Mechanic commented after the oddity cleared their section of the 'mechbay.

"For I am stomping through the Valley on the shoulders of steel giants, spitting flame and fury at all the pussy little devils below," Ninyu completed the common 'Mechwarrior's corruption of the traditional prayer.

"If you want to get your gear stowed, Star Captain, I'll get to work putting your machine back together."

Ninyu reached into his cockpit and hefted out his gearpack and duffel. "Does this ship have a weightlifting room?"

"Should, it would be up in the crew lounge area," the Mechanic replied as he began connecting diagnostic computers to the internal and external data access ports on the Banshee Damocles.

"Good," Ninyu replied before he began the short trek to his quarters behind the battlemech cubicle. Pumping iron was good for his body, and in hand-to-hand it was bad for an enemy's body.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Chapter Afterword<strong>:

This is where things begin to move toward the inevitable chaos that will spawn the second war.

Any of ye veterans of SEED Destiny know already that with the destruction of Junius Seven in orbit, so ends the obvious gambit of LOGOS. That said, Mendel just inadvertently added a worse manner of fuel to the fire, by using such monstrous amounts of antimatter to wipe out Junius Seven. That alone could be used to scare the piss out of the civilians, and with that kind of fear you have an instant recipe for war. The whole 'coordinators just tried to flatten Earth' thing will still factor in, but not to the same degree as before.

The other major point of contention from this chapter, oddly enough, is the incident in GARM. When the Magi grant asylum to someone, so long as they do nothing to dishonor themselves it is permanent. In this case, though, her parents came looking for her to force the issue, which is both at conflict with her wishes and in conflict with the grant of amnesty by Gerald Lightbringer. That puts her parents at direct conflict with a Century Commander of the Techstrikers, not exactly an effective way to ensure living to retirement age. On the other hand, if the press gets involved, this could become a serious shitstorm and international incident.

Combine these incidents with the whole Girty Lue thing (which will be elaborated on in Dilemma of Flay Allster), and you have a recipe for war by classic casus belli: screwing with someone's internal and external mechanisms is a very good way to start a fracas. Such a poisonous cauldron will spell violence in short order, trust me on that. Only one question remains: when the dogs of war are unleased, whose arse shall lose a pound of flesh by the end of the day?

Erm, okay, two questions remain. When shall the Golden Phoenix arrive to join the fray? Above, you see the induction of veteran warriors and heavy hardware, along with support staff capable of making sure the whoopass is delivered in a timely and speedy fashion. This is no accident on the part of the Executor and the Empress; this is a major campaign and a major rewrite of the rulebook. When you deploy such a massive amount of force, you expect results, and this campaign shall be no exception. As to why such interference is coming down the pike at high speed, well, I shall leave that to explanation to come.

I think anything else that needs mention shall be covered in Review Replies.

**NEXT UP**: Junius Seven comes back to haunt the Mendel forces, while a series of small, unconnected incidents are magnified from a small gust of hot air and blow into a raging tornado of suck for all parties involved.

* * *

><p><strong>Review Replies<strong>: 6 replies! Damn good to see things are advancing apace here, and damn good to see people are still loving this tale!

_Deathzealot_: PM me and I'll toss you my Google ID so we can collab on the JG story. I completely forgot about it.

Neo could not deploy in time to make a difference — note that the Girty Lue did not even get its full complement of MS out the bay until after most of the ship's weapons were out of action. Morgan and Neo are now Bondsmen, though assigned two different locations.

I do have a variant of the Garm-class that is a heavy carrier unit, I forget how many units it has at the moment but it does exist.

Next of AAA is cooking right now. Stay tuned for more!

_Frasermage_: Interesting thought. I may have to look into a BA unit of similar capability, and Mendel will definitely deploy more TAG weapons in coming Sets.

_Akalon_: The second is not a typo, but the first is. Thank you!

Here's more for ye! Always looking forward to an opinion. Stay tuned for more!

_Dark Phoenix Jake_: The second section should be answer enough for ye. How does it fit your predictions?

_Sieben Nightwing_: Since I use , there is no 'load' to these dice :)

And a very merry welcome to the beta group. You'll get plenty more action as things go forward, rest assured!

_Fire Miner_: I answered everything in PM, if you have any further questions, feel free to drop them in review or in PM!

* * *

><p><strong>The Gripe Sheet<strong>:

**Akalon** pointed out two errors in the last TRO. Thank you! As always, much thanks to **Necroblade**, **Takeshi Yamato**, and now **Sieben Nightwing** for keeping my prose clean!

* * *

><p><strong>Footnotes<strong>:

(1): **E**xplosive-**F**orged **P**enetrator, a newer type of anti-armor weapon that basically rams a copper slug through the armor of a tank by detonating the charge above the tank and allowing the explosive shape charge to form the copper slug into something akin to a bullet moving at over 5000 meters / second. This bullet then penetrates the weak top armor of the tank and slams down into the crew compartment, carrying with it thousands of tiny fragments that chop up the crew or passengers of the vehicle. Most armor packages are incapable of stopping it. An IRL version of this weapon would be the submunitions carried by the AGM-154 JSOW weapon system.

(X): **Gate Pad** is in reference to a special magic rune placed onto a floor surface to prevent persons using a Gate, Teleport, Blink, Phase Walk, or Dimension Walk spell (or similar psionic skill) from accidentally interfering with other persons that might be arriving in or moving through the vicinity. Typically, this spell / rune combination is only used in high-traffic areas, and permanent versions of it are possible but rare. In common gamer's parlance, this rune is designed to prevent 'telefragging'

* * *

><p><strong>TRO SECTION<strong>: Today, you saw a new unit of the Equatorial Armed Forces. Here is the TRO of this new, interesting hovertank.

BattleTech Vehicle Technical Readout

* CUSTOM WEAPON

Type/Model: Bullfrog Light Hover  
>Tech: Mixed Tech  3060  
>Config: Hovercraft<br>Rules: Level 3, Standard design

Mass: 25 tons

Power Plant: 70 I.C.E. (C)  
>Cruise Speed: 86.4 kmh  
>Maximum Speed: 129.6 kmh

Armor Type: Standard

Armament:  
>1 Mini Gauss*(C)<br>1 SRM 4 (C)

Manufacturer: Equatorial Union  
>Location: Earth<br>Communications System: (Undeclared)  
>Targeting &amp; Tracking System: (Undeclared)<p>

==Overview:==

A radical departure in armor technologies of the Cosmic Era, the Bullfrog Light Hovertank was designed specifically to give the Equatorial Union mobile, fast, go-anywhere firepower to supplement their existing collections of heavier tracked tanks and blossoming Mobile Suit programs. Unlike the heavier units, the Bullfrog is a hover unit, capable of crossing even moderate seas between islands in the Equatorial chain to allow mobility otherwise impossible to achieve for the island nation.

==Capabilities:==

The Bullfrog (not to be confused with the Bulldog Medium Tank of Inner Sphere fame) gets its name from the amphibian aspect of its namesake — namely, that it can live on land or water without issue. This is made possible by an intelligence coup which brought to Equatorial the design specifications of a heavier, terrifying hovertank — the Condor IIM. By downsizing the internal components of the purloined machine, a goodly portion of the R&D was short-circuited to allow the project to advance before the onset of war in CE 73.

The first major goal of the program was to create a unit suitable for harassing and rapid interdiction anywhere in the islands. With the exception of certain heavy jungle areas, the Bullfrog has the ability to roam anywhere in Equatorial waters or on land — even areas that conventional ships cannot go due to underwater obstacles. The lift systems on the Bullfrog give it half a meter ground clearance, which is sufficient to pass over most obstacles; the air skirt is made of woven steel fiber over a rubberized nylon inner shell, which provides excellent resilience to minor tears and scrapes. The armor plate covers most of the exterior of the skirt, though there are some exposed areas that can be hit with small arms fire.

The second major goal of the program was the ability for these hovertanks to be able to challenge Mobile Suits in numbers and cripple or destroy the enemy machines. This was made possible with the use of a significantly-scaled-down coilgun based off the Mendel Gauss Rifle systems used on aerofighters. The Eurasian Mini-Gauss was shown to have roughly a third of the net damage of the original model, slightly lower range (effectively ranged out to 2100 meters, maximum 2800), and weighed in at five tons as opposed to 12 tons for the full-size weapon. The greatest net benefit of the Mini-Gauss would be the ammunition, in that a single ton of slugs provided 24 nickel-plated ferrous slugs weighing 40 kilos each, a significant store of ammo for a main gun weapon on such a small craft. Combined with the SRM 4-tube launcher ripped off from Blue Cosmos, the Bullfrog has significant damage potential both at range and in close.

In defensive terms, the Equatorial forces have created a new composite armor system that mimics the old chobham armor system with the added bonus of also providing defense against beam weapons by way of a significant layer of asbestos and heat-resistant polymer between the layers of ceramic and steel. The total protection is laughable comparative to the Magi's armor units in the same weight bracket, but the ability for the Bullfrog to absorb at least one beam rifle hit anywhere on the design except the rear provides an exceptional defense ratio not seen on any other ground unit and not even available to most Mobile Suits. Given the haphazard nature of most MS pilot gunnery training, the survivability will be excellent with the rapid transition to mostly beam weapon arsenals in the major states.

Trials of the machine in live-fire exercises have proved its viability in engagements against Mobile Suits. Machines not protected by Phase Shift armor can be hammered enough to force a disable or mission kill, and depending on the enemy machine it can usually be done from long range using only the mini-gauss. Against enemies with better-range firepower, closing in to use the mini-gauss and SRM allows for increased damage per salvo as well as forcing the enemy to fight in close, which is not a good option for fire support machines, most of which are not set up for close-quarters battle.

In terms of crew amenities, a vehicle this small and staffed with only two men is not set up for long-duration operations (days or more). The only notable crew amenity is a small and highly inconvenient latrine in the T/C area that also has an extension head tube for the driver. The seats are reasonably comfortable, but for a machine that masses roughly half of a Linear Tank and costs far less, there really is no expectation of crew comfort.

==Variants:==

No known variants of this design exist as of yet.

==Notable Vehicles & Crew:==

As the design has not seen combat as of yet, the Bullfrog has no notable crews.

==Deployment==

As the Bullfrog is still in initial construction phases, the deployment of the machines is limited. The first battalions of armor are being outfitted in the general vicinity of the factory complex producing them, with 24 to a company and 4 companies to each battalion (total 96 machines per battalion). Expected initial outlay is going to be 4 battalions in the Equatorial armed forces, though this number may increase depending on political considerations at the end of the production run.

==SPECIAL RULES==

The armor on the machine is considered standard armor for all calculation purposes. Beam weapon damage is not doubled against this unit.

Mini Gauss Rifle: 5 damage, 1 heat, ranges 7/14/21/28. Ballistic (Gauss). Cannot use special munitions unless those munitions apply to the Gauss Rifle and Light Gauss Rifle. Mass 5T, 3 Crits (1 item slot on a vehicle). 24 rds ammo per ton. Mini Gauss Rifle will detonate when struck by a critical hit, with 10 points damage to the machine.

* * *

><p>TypeModel: Bullfrog Light Hover

Mass: 25 tons

Construction Options: Fractional Accounting

Equipment: (Items, Mass)

Int. Struct.: 15 pts Standard (0, 2.50)

Engine: 70 I.C.E. (0, 5.00)  
>Cruise MP: 8<br>Flank MP: 12

Heat Sinks: 0 (0, .00)  
>Cockpit &amp; Controls: (0, 1.25)<br>Crew: 2 Members (0, .00)  
>Lift Equipment: (0, 2.50)<br>Turret Equipment: (0, .50)

Armor Factor: 100 pts Standard (IS) (0, 6.25)

Internal Structure / Armor Value:  
>Front: 3  25  
>Left  Right Sides: 3 / 20/20  
>Rear: 3  15  
>Turret: 3  20

* * *

><p>Weapons and Equipment (Loc Heat Ammo Items Mass)<p>

1 Mini Gauss* (C) (Turret, 0, 24, 2, 5.00)

1 SRM 4 (C) (Turret, 0, 25, 2, 2.00)

* * *

><p>TOTALS: 0 4 25.00<p>

Items & Tons Left: 6, 0.00

* * *

><p>Calculated Factors:<p>

Total Cost: 635,500 C-Bills / 3,209,275 Earth-dollars

Battle Value: 357  
>Cost per BV: 1,780.11<p>

Weapon Value: 209 / 209 (Ratio = .59 / .59)

Damage Factors: SRDmg = 9; MRDmg = 4; LRDmg = 2

BattleForce2: MP: 8H, Armor/Structure: 0 / 4  
>Damage PBM/L: 1/1/1, Overheat: 0  
>Class: GL; Point Value: 4<p> 


	7. Political Nightmares, Real Nightmares

(Jokers Wild, Set 2, Chapter 7: Political Nightmares, Real Nightmares)

(18 February CE 73, 1230 Hours Lima (UTC-6))  
>(Wiley's Pub and Burger, Chicago, Illinois, Old United States Territory, Atlantic Federation North America holdings)<p>

"Man, check this shit out," one of the patrons waved his beer bottle at the wide-screen behind the bar.

"That's some serious shit," an old Earth Alliance veteran groused.

"They have that much firepower just sitting around, and there ain't anything stopping them from using it on us," a regular at the pub noted. "They nuked Junius Seven yesterday, what's to say they don't nuke us next?"

"You're right, there isn't anything stopping them from doing it," the first guy groused.

"They did do it to stop Junius Seven from dropping on the planet," the bartender noted in hopes he could console the crowd before anything got out of hand.

...It did not help. "Yeah? And who put the damn things in orbit again?" the old EA vet asked. After ten seconds of silence, he chuckled. "What I thought. The Coordinators started this mess, Mendel's adding gasoline to the fire, and it's up to us to un-fuck the situation."

"Right on, man," the first complainant acknowledged.

The bartender sighed. In reality, the Sponsor Nations put the PLANTs in orbit, and the Coordinators were doing their damndest to keep them in orbit and not dropping into the atmosphere. More to the point, Mendel was trying to clean some of the debris out of the orbits around the planet, but such a look at reality would not jive with this crowd. He decided to keep his silence on the matter.

"Fucking pussies, the lot of 'em," a brash lady commented from down the bar. "Can't take it like the rest of us, have to genetically modify themselves to make things easier."

"Right on, sister," the first patron said. "God didn't intend us to be playing with his handiwork. I say shut down all those programs and get rid of 'em all. Whole damn thing is way too dangerous."

"And the same for Mendel's Eugenics program," the old EA vet continued the thought. "That's where the real danger lies. Artificially born and bred, and I don't care what they say about it, most of 'em are born to be soldiers. Soldiers aimed right at us."

" 'Nother beer, barkeep," the first guy requested. "Still pussies though, regardless of how hard they can be at the genetic level."

"Sure, they'll win in space, I expect that much readily," the old EA vet conceded. "They won't win on the ground. They can't win on the ground. We outnumber 'em 500 to 1."

"Only way they can win is if they nuke us. They do that, the whole world goes against 'em," the third guy said.

"We should nuke 'em first," the lady opined. "Put one inside their colonies and detonate it, blow the colonies out like a firecracker in a beer can."

"And suddenly, no more Eugenics programs, no more Coordinator programs, I like that thought," the first guy said.

_Good Gods, what kind of crowd have I attracted here?_ the barkeep asked himself inside the confines of his own mind. It wasn't that he did anything overt to attract the Blue Cosmos yakkers to his bar, but there were a sodding lot of their sympathizers in his pub, or so it seemed.

"Wouldn't that create a lot more problems like Junius Seven?" someone at a table asked.

"Eh, once we deal with Mendel, we can deal with the colonies easily," the old EA vet groused. "But we ain't going to get anywhere until we bring them to heel or kill them all. They're roadblocking our rightful progress, our rightful head position in the Earth Sphere."

"We are destined to rule the Earth Sphere, and we'll do it even if we have to step over their dead bodies to take the crown," the (clearly drunk) lady answered sharply.

"At least the fucks paid for this victory," the first guy said, waving his bottle at the wide-screen monitor again. "Lost nine Mobile Armor units in the battle. I'm not losing sleep over that one!"

"Huh?" the EA vet asked. "Where you hear that?"

"Internet, man. Someone in Mendel leaked that nine of their Mobile Armors were destroyed clearing opposition from the ruins before they nuked it."

_It was seven lost of nine sent, not only is this guy a BC supporter, he has problems reading,_ the barkeep thought but did not say.

"Opposition?" the EA vet asked in continuation.

"Yeah, someone was on Junius Seven, pushing it toward us," the first guy continued. "They sent in Mobile Armors to clear them, then the warships with nukes to finish the battle."

"Whoa, did not know that. Who was the pushers?"

"Dunno, nobody has said yet," the lady interjected.

"Well, in the absence of hard proof, I say it was a false flag made to make Mendel look good to the rest of the world," the first guy concluded. "And I don't care what video they release of it, fuck that, these guys are self-admitted masters of fucking with people's minds. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if they did all this shit just to make themselves look like heroes."

"You ain't the only one that believes that, brother," the lady said.

"False flag," the first guy saluted the television. "Too bad it was a painfully easy one to see through."

"I'll drink to that," the EA vet answered.

"I wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing wasn't just a prelude to make us start a war with them so they could invade us," the third guy at the bar opined.

"The whole thing is a false flag to justify taking our lands?" the first guy asked.

"It could be. Think about it! How much of what they say is the truth?"

"Less than our politicians," the EA vet answered that one.

"So, if that's the case, they can call for reinforcements — and they will — as soon as we start anything in self-defense. They make the whole thing sound like it is to our benefit that they invade us. ZAFT and the USSA will get in on the action, of course — they want to make sure we can't guide them to the wisdom of the Blue and Pure World, so they'll join Mendel. Whole thing is going to become a bloody cluster-fuck."

_Okay, now they're throwing conspiracy theories that are worse than the whole 'we didn't land on the moon' conspiracy theory,_ the barkeep mentally groused. Of course, the latter conspiracy theory was thoroughly debunked after Copernicus City had been founded on the moon — an enterprising tour company began offering spacecraft tours to see the various landing sites on the Moon, including the American Apollo projects.

"I say we bloody the hell out of them first — make their colonies permanent additions to the debris belt," the EA vet suggested. Nobody objected to his opinion, which was only more-so frightened the barkeep.

Still, it was business, in a nation that was rapidly economically declining at this point in the game, and the Barkeep would not object to business — customers that wanted beer and burgers, specifically. He would not turn away a customer, but he hoped the economy of the Earth Alliance did not collapse before something happened to correct it. America had self-destructed in a not-so-dissimilar fashion in centuries past, and someone had once said something about history repeating itself...

-x-x-x-

(20 February CE 73, 0805 Hours UTC)  
>(ZAFT National Training Center, PLANT Colony Armory One, L4 Colony Group)<p>

"This is insane," Lunamaria Hawke noted. "A month later and we're _**still**_ working on picking up the damage."

"It's the price we paid for that breach," Rey Za Burrel groused. "Clear on the left!" he announced a few seconds before his ZAKU Phantom picked up and tossed aside several structural beams from the warehouse rubble.

"At least the Earth Alliance paid for it," Shinn said with something approaching a tone of humor. He did not like the fact that Mendel had captured the ship, the suits, the pilots — damn near everything — intact from the assault, but at least the Earth Alliance was stuck holding their balls at the end of the day. Whether or not anyone in the Earth Alliance knew they had been corncobbed by Mendel, he did not know.

"As did we. The only side that walked away clean on this one was Mendel," Rey said.

"Clear on the right!" Shinn lifted and tossed a hangar truss with his new ZGMF-X56S machine — the Impulse, which was officially ready for deploy four days after the raid on Armory One. More than a few persons had made noise about 'horses leaving the barn' or 'days late, dollars short' about that timing incident, but in all reality it was no measure of fault on the part of the contractor building the machine. They were actually a week ahead of schedule in delivering the machine, even considering half their facility had been destroyed by the attack.

"So, when are we supposed to get the new-new machines?" Luna asked nobody in particular, still fuming over the general damage and the attack on the Minerva in particular.

"Mendel has them in production right now, should be ready in a month or so," Captain Gladys noted.

"Safety left! I'm moving this panel section!" Luna ordered over the external speakers. After five seconds, she pulled the roofing panel section up and out of the warehouse rubble pile. With two folds and a stomp, it was ready to go on to a salvage trailer.

"I'd say we have another week or so of debris cleanup, and probably three months of reconstruction after that," Rey estimated. "They did a lot of damage, there was nobody in the colony capable of stopping them."

"I salute Commander Joule for trying, but three against one in an older machine like that? He was gambling with death on that one," Shinn judged.

"That older machine can still solo a trio of the ZAKUs in his hands," Luna noted. "And his Instructor from hell in her CGUE DEEP Arms...aye yai yai," Luna bemoaned.

"Those three were aces," Rey dropped. "You in the green vest, clear out of the debris zone! I'm going to shift this whole pile ten meters right!"

"More of the Earth Alliance Extended program," Shinn spat his contempt. Since the capture of the first-series Extendeds, Mendel and ZAFT had known clearly what they were dealing with. Reports were already coming in that the captured pilots from the _Girty Lue_ were 'Second-generation' Extended, conditioned to operate with less control or logistical overhead and get the same results. It had worked; the Extended second group had done just as well as the first group in all particulars — they were able to hammer flat a numerically superior foe but got their asses beat against Gerald Lightbringer.

"You have to give credit to Lightbringer, though, that was a slick ambush he pulled off," Luna commented, though even in praise she wasn't all that enthusiastic about having to say it.

"Anyone can ambush like that," Shinn showed his contempt for the involvement of the Dominion. "This panel, all personnel clear!"

"When the ship is finished and we are launched, the whole unit will be practicing ambush and direct engagement tactics," Captain Gladys noted to the pilots. "We will also be engaging the _Dominion_ several times in mock battles, and that includes the new machines and their pilots."

"What? That is a travesty!" Shinn half-shouted.

"Those machines are no longer ours, Shinn," Talia corrected the pilot's common line of thinking on the matter. "Regardless of what we feel on the matter, those are now Mendel machines and Mendel pilots. We treat them as such regardless of how they left our possession."

"It's still wrong! Those three pilots killed over 200 of our men here!"

"Shinn!" Talia sharply rebuked the pilot. "That was not a request for comment, that was an order, and more directly it is an order from the Chairman himself. None of us like it, but it shall be done. Or do I have to pull you off flight status for those training battles to prevent an international incident?"

"I'll do it, Captain," Shinn said grudgingly. He had allowed himself to become mentally distracted by the debate over the new Gundams, and forgot to call a safety stance before he pulled part of a support beam out of the rubble. His haste caused a debris slide that pinned one worker and broke a leg on another. "Oh, shit, medics to hangar 131, I have a man down," he admitted after he realized what had happened.

"Calm down, Shinn, it's not the end of the world," Luna tried consoling him. "Besides, we're getting two sets back for the one we lost. We'll come out ahead, regardless of what Mendel picked up from the battlefield."

"Return to the hangar and take a break, all of you," Talia ordered. "Collect your nerves and get ready to do it again; if you're out of place in your mind, we'll have more accidents we don't need. Shinn, I'm going to have your system records pulled to review this accident."

"I'll have the cartridge waiting for the mechanics when I get back," he responded. With a safety violation like that, he was probably headed for a couple days of classroom time on the processes of moving materials safely. Not the first time he had taken the class, though.

"At least they cleaned up the beam saber graffiti that bitch put in the side of the ship," Luna half-complained for the humiliation of it. They had a name of the wench that had done it, and she was now a Pilot Officer under Gerald Lightbringer.

"When you see her, slap her for all of us for it," Shinn requested.

-x-x-x-

(24 February CE 73, 1330 Hours Lima)  
>(Downtown Onogoro City, Onogoro Island, Emirate of Orb)<p>

Like much the rest of the world, Cagalli pulled a bi-weekly paycheck and had to keep herself in her personal budget. It was the way of the modern world, and nobody in the Earth Sphere escaped those tenets.

Unlike the rest of the world, Cagalli also had a 250,000 Earth-Dollar salary per year, and a goodly portion of her living expenses were paid for by the Athha family holdings, the government (as a job perk of her being the Prime Minister), or handled by way of alternate arrangements. Effectively, of her 250K (no income tax in Orb), roughly 75K of that went into her personal retirement accounts, leaving 175K for living expenses and blow money, such as it was.

Of course, Cagalli being Cagalli, this still didn't entice her to shop in the normal girl fashion. Athrun had to admit that it was refreshing that he could treat her as 'one of the guys' when it came to shopping and such, but she did also use the wrong bathroom for him to completely feel that way. Still, she did do her own clothing shopping and she did do a lot of her own lifting, making Athrun something of an advisor more than the typical 'guy along to carry the shopping spoils'.

Today was a day on foot for the two to do the shopping, meaning that Athrun had planned ahead for this and was carrying a sling bag for her small items and such. Both were wearing Hydration pouches — February in the southern hemisphere meant summer, and summer on Onogoro meant temperatures approaching 40°C (124°F) by 2PM. It also helped them blend into the trendy crowds when out shopping — Hydration packs were becoming very popular with the outdoors crowd, and there were even some enterprising people who would wear Squad Hydration Packs and sell on-the-go fill-ups of water and electrolyte powder mix. Results were mixed, depending on how much the 'shoppers' realized there were fountains everywhere for a free (if not always cold) refill.

Their journey from Cagalli's town apartment passed by one particular structure that Athrun hoped was being guarded by a smart officer today. When Athrun approached to roughly a hundred meters, he could recognize the shield art on the commander of the Marine Point at the gate today and breathed a quick sigh of relief. This was Point Commander Harvey, an exceptionally savvy Marine Point Commander who knew when to low-key things and when to make a lot of noise.

"Morning, milady Athha," one of the Point Officers at the forward gate said. They had kept it quiet, much as Athrun figured the Point Commander would tell them to, in an attempt to avoid blowing their 'cover' for the day. Said officer simply nodded to Athrun as he passed, and made no overt gesture to Cagalli, furthering the cover.

"That was good, no scene today," Cagalli grumped. Five Armored Marines coming to attention tended to rattle windows in the vicinity, much less get the attention of every person in earshot. Athrun had warned them off about that conduct after the first such incident, which helped but not completely.

"One of the less rigid Marine Point Commanders," Athrun replied. "At least they mean well."

"So do the press, I think," Cagalli grumped.

Athrun dodged that argument by changing to the more pressing subject of the day. "So where do we begin?"

"Teller's," Cagalli decided. "I have a thought."

Athrun raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. Cagalli having 'a thought' in shopping was usually an experience; Cagalli having said thought in pertaining to a military surplus warehouse was somewhere between exhilarating and frightening, with Athrun leaning in the general direction of 'frightening' at this point in time.

The trek to the store in question was not far. As a matter of convenience, Teller's Military Surplus was only a block down the road from the Mendel Embassy, and the embassy staff visited to either shop for military surplus or deliver it. Colonel Kisaka had thoroughly vetted the store, of course, to make sure it was safe for Representative Athha and her boyfriend.

With Cagalli being a frequent personal customer for personal reasons, the staff also knew her by name. "Lady Cagalli, welcome!" the cashier said after Athrun followed Cagalli inside.

"How's business, Ralph?" Cagalli asked out of courtesy.

"Business is doing well, very well, actually. I've had a lot of people in over the past couple of weeks, farmers mostly, purchasing a load of surplus MDBS shotguns for use on wild boars on the mainland. Them paired 10-gauge slugs will drop a charging boar in its tracks, first time every time."

"Yeah, and you've got four more shots to make sure it is done right if needed," Athrun commented dryly. He didn't begrudge the problem to the farmers, mainland Orb had always had a problem with feral boars, but the choice of instrument was not designed to give them a chance in this case.

"Well, when the walking bacon is trying to eat you, extra lead to throw is not a bad thing," the cashier said sardonically. "Can I interest you in anything today, Cagalli, Athrun?"

"I have a concept," Cagalli started the dance. "Looking for something in forty-caliber, or nine if you don't have any forties."

"New production or antique?" the cashier asked in counter.

"New production," Cagalli decided.

"I have just the thing," he waved the two down the display case toward the pistols. "New production, in from ZAFT by way of Mendel. This is the ZAFT C-72 line of pistols, what they're planning on moving the armed forces to. They even demo modeled one in .45 for Mendel as a replacement to their aging H&K Mark 23, though reviews were mixed in Mendel on that."

"Not surprising," Cagalli noted. "They carry a Gladius for tradition and lethality, and good, heavy pistols are a tradition for Magi." Cagalli had spent a goodly portion of time with the Marines, and she learned some interesting tidbits from them even if she had not gained favor of a .45-caliber pistol.

"Seeing anything you would want to check out?" Ralph asked.

"Yeah, the C-72 with the .40 and the 9mm conversion kit," Cagalli said.

"Be my guest," the cashier was quick to hand it over to her after verifying the weapon was 'clear' (no ammunition in the weapon).

Cagalli did all her usual checks: slide stop, safeties, grip and balance, sight alignment, trigger pull weight and smoothness, magazine release, the works. After a few minutes and a couple 'present' tests (raise to firing position), she was satisfied she liked it. Unlike normal, however, she turned it over to Athrun for next. "See how you like it," she said.

"Sure," Athrun said as he received it. "ZAFT's new pistol..." he let the sentence trail off as he did much the exact same checks as Cagalli did. After a minute of his own testing, he came to much the same conclusion as his fianceé. "Not a bad piece of hardware, especially for something that is supposed to be standard issue."

"Lot less stiff or heavy than the Mark 23 I carry concealed," the cashier noted. "So, milady, what are you thinking?"

"Two in .40 with the conversion kits, if you would?" Cagalli asked.

"Two? You're not — "

"Duals?" Cagalli asked to complete his thought, to which he nodded affirm. "Oh, definitely not! The Marines can get away with duals because of their armor, and that's one thing I definitely don't want."

"Then why two?" Athrun asked.

"Your pistol kits, milady," the proprietor presented the two kits readily to Cagalli.

"Well, you gave me a ring last week because you wanted me to be there forever," Cagalli said. "Today, I give you this, because I want you to be here forever." Cagalli presented Athrun with the pistol case.

Athrun said nothing, just received it and stared at her for a moment. "Thank you. Thank you very much, my love," he said finally.

-x-x-x-

(28 February CE 73, 0900 Hours UTC)  
>(Seventh Floor Courts Room, Mendel Administration Building, Mendel Colony)<p>

"Star Admiral on deck! All rise!" The barrister Marine for the courts half-shouted.

Star Admiral Centara entered from the Judicial Watch Office (analogous to the Judge's Chambers in most courts) and moved to the bench smartly. "As you were," he declared before he took a seat simultaneous to the rest of the persons in the room. "This Court of civilian criminal affairs has been convened for two issues which will be handled separately but in sequential proceedings. To whit, I show case PXA-0001035, pertaining to request of asylum granted to one Diana Trimes, and the legal challenge issued by Atlantic Federation civilians Jonathon Trimes and Cecilia Trimes. Second issue is case PXC-0004744, actions on or about 15 February of this year in the GARM research facility conducted by Jonathon and Cecilia Trimes."

"Your honor, the plaintiffs of case PXA-0001035 wish to file a motion to seek binding mediation," the Earth Alliance lawyer provided to the Trimes requested.

"Motion denied," Wayne answered immediately. "As the Plaintiffs of said case have refused to conduct a Trial of Refusal on the initial summary judgment of the matter, they have no direct challenge authority to that judgment. This matter will go to legal review. Before I continue, do the Plaintiffs have any further motions to make?"

"Not at this time, your honor," the lawyer resumed his seat after saying so.

"Very well, do the defendants in case PXC-0004744 have any motions to make at this time?"

"No, your honor," the lawyer answered.

"Very well, at this time we begin legal review of PXA-0001035. By default, the Summary Judgment of Asylum and all supporting documents are entered into evidence at this time."

On this, the Lawyer was ready to strike. "Your honor, the Plaintiffs motion to strike from the record all supporting documents and statements from the Summary Judgment, on the grounds that the defendant is not of legal standing and the medical analysis is complete hearsay."

Across the courtroom, Star Colonel Wilhelm stood up next to Diana Trimes. "Your honor, the defense on this matter would like to remind the court of Legal Standing age regulations in the Multimage Empire being a minimum age of twelve and passage of Basic Instruction or an equivalent accredited to all Empiric standards. Additionally, as this is a case pertaining to legal status and asylum as issued by a ranked Magi officer, the minimum education standard may be waived in cases of assumed or known duress to the defendant and otherwise quantifiable competency of the defendant. In support of this, I submit into evidence the Basic Placement Testing records of Diana Trimes, which show her at or above a competency level to Magi standards before any instruction or placement at the GARM R&D facility."

"Challenge to this opinion from the Plaintiffs?" Wayne asked.

The Lawyer knew his first gambit had just died aborning. With the battery of placement tests showing Diana above basic placement, there would be no grounds for questioning her competency and thus knocking out her legal standing. The only way for him to challenge those documents would be to directly challenge the test administrator (assumption of cheating) or Wilhelm (assumption of false statements), but both would result in a Circle of Equals — a losing proposition for an Earth Alliance Natural poindexter-type against a Magi Trueborn officer. "Neg, your honor," the Lawyer finally admitted.

"Very well, this supporting document is added to the evidence pool at this time. Do the Plaintiffs or Defendants have any other evidence or supporting documents to add at this time?" No response was the answer from both camps. "Very well, evidentiary submission is closed at this time. Legal arguments will begin with the Plaintiff at this time."

The Lawyer stood up after a quick drink of water, then composed himself for what he assumed would be a swan song of epic delivery...and little to no effect at this point. "Your honor, the core issue at hand is the standing of the defendant and her ability to make a sound judgment as to where she wishes to be versus her parent's judgment as to where she should be. Granted Mendel has judged a twelve-year-old competent to make such a call, however the rest of the world does not consider that of sufficient standing to make such a call."

Wayne smiled, expecting him to step on that landmine during this process. "You present an interesting position, Mister Konas. With that statement, you have just declared the judgment of a mere three billion persons to exceed the judgment of well over three billion planets full of billions of people. I would like to hear your justification of such wanton arrogance."

"Societal variance is a recognized concept of Magi philosophy, and in this I invoke the principle of variance to show that Earth Alliance citizens are not considered of a majority until they are eighteen for a reason. The Old Emperor spoke of this in his own Remembrance, decrying the waste of talent and time by inefficient education methods and social conditioning of worlds he had visited over the eons." Mister Konas knew when the Star Admiral said 'legal arguments', he was not joking about the 'argument' part in the slightest. Of course, Konas was in Mendel to learn the legal schema thoroughly, to find exploits in their system and use them to the fullest extent.

"Aye, the Old Emperor spoke at length on the matter, especially decrying societies with a majority of 25 or 30, which was not far departed from the average lifespan of those societies. Thus the necessity of the Placement System for inductees, that their true measure could be taken relative to core principle of the Empire, not reliant on the misplaced judgment of elitists that run power-games inside government shells. So, if Diana has placed at a level equivalent to someone above the average placement of college-bound 18-year-olds in the Atlantic Federation, why should I be concerned with a societal variance based on an arbitrary number that holds no quantifiable grounding?"

And that was where the legal argument fell flat, Konas knew. Since Diana showed well above the average, even for a Natural, the arbitrary age limit was no dice on the face of it. Personal placement and results showed higher than arbitrary numbers in these cases, and precedent would favor it. More to the point, this matter was not particularly about her standing inside the Earth Alliance — it was about her standing inside the Magi Empire, and their rulebook was both far shorter and far less forgiving than would be in North America.

"I have no response to that question, your honor," Konas answered directly.

"So, given that, we consider the position not in terms of numbers or legal standing, but soundness of judgments. You are aware, Mister Konas, that your clients had initiated the necessary placement process of the defendant into Blue Cosmos training, scheduled to begin during May of this year?"

"I am well aware of this," the lawyer said.

"Now, given present political standings between Blue Cosmos and Mendel, and the defendant's prior repeated-stated desire to avoid this conflict in its entirety, why should I consider the judgment of the parents to be in excess of the daughter? Keep in mind this question is framed against the expected reality of a war between Blue Cosmos and Mendel in the next two years minimum, as anyone who does not believe in Existence being sunshine and rainbows is expecting a scrap between Mendel and Blue Cosmos at the minimum, likely to involve more parties than just those."

"I must be missing something here," the lawyer mused, considering a different tack on the matter. "Are you suggesting some manner of outcome in such actions, your honor?"

"Aff, I am. As Blue Cosmos has singularly failed to achieve any notable result against Mendel, and the direct stated intention of the plaintiffs is to put Diana in a position whereby she would be doing battle against ZAFT or Mendel or both, I have reason to question both motives and judgment of the plaintiffs when the ready expectation is at the minimum capture in such an action."

"Your honor, Earth Alliance citizens do not have that expectation," Konas answered directly.

"Aff, I would expect that," Wayne considered. "In common parlance, the average citizen of Napoleonic-era France also expected they would beat Tsarist Russia's arse pretty hard. Last I checked the history books, that did not work out so well for Napoleon or France." Wayne held up a hand to forestall a counter. "Any way you cut it, though, the action of registering Diana for compulsory Blue Cosmos service in the face of an oncoming war is lacking in judgment, lacking in morality, and a clear violation of free will on the matter which is guaranteed to her by the Atlantic Federation charter. As she had not been conscripted at the time of her request for asylum, and the documents showed she was signed up by her parents, I can only assume that their intentions were to turn her into what the Magi call a 'Tykebomb', a forced child soldier or forced child terrorist. Correct me if I am wrong, Konas, Jonathon, Cecilia," Wayne said.

None of the three answered. Konas stepped forward after a moment, considering a gamble on that front. "Would not the Magi position of accepting recruits be the same?"

"Service among the Magi touman is strictly voluntary. No person may be compelled to serve in any fashion, even is conscription disallowed among our ranks," Wayne answered. "I enlisted at twelve, granted, but I chose to sign on the dotted line of my own accord. Diana received no such luxury, she was forced to choose between her friends and an inescapable reality."

"At which I guess this one is a dead end as well," Konas admitted after a second. "Whatever happened to parents knowing best?"

"Parents, yes," Wayne answered. "Elders, maybe. Blue Cosmos recruiters, not quite. In the case of the latter, I would trust the judgment of a meth addict moreso. Have you any further legal arguments to make?"

Konas considered that he could have used a political angle to possibly get some leverage, but Mendel personnel had a bad habit of scoffing at political or terrorist threats. It was that manner of reckless abandon that drew the hardest souls to their nation — in this case, it also applied to Diana Trimes just as much as it did any common vagabond. Without the use of a political angle, he was out of options.

"No, your honor, I have no further legal considerations."

"Very well, does the Defendant have any legal arguments to make at this time?"

"Neg, Star Admiral," Wilhelm answered curtly.

"Very well, at this time argument proceedings are closed. Stand to for Summary Judgment Review." Both teams stood and glared at each other briefly, then looked to the Star Admiral. "As the Plaintiffs have singularly failed to show any proper cause under which the Judgment of Asylum should be annulled, and under the considerations of retaliation and of imminent jeopardy to the defendant should the prior Judgment be vacated, I am required under law to uphold the request for Asylum at this time. Additionally, by precedent this case is hereby terminated at this level; as I can show patterns of abuse, depredation, and have expectation of personal jeopardy or retaliation, the defendant is considered an at-risk party. You may attempt to appeal to Division Commander Gerard Caecilius when contact is reestablished with the remainder of the Empire, though I should warn you in all reality you have no effective hope of this case being heard at any level above me."

"Understood, your honor. At this time I would like to lodge a request for appeal to the Division Commander Techstrikers."

"Request acknowledged and recorded," Wayne said formally. "This matter is closed and sealed, let its standing be entered into the records of all persons involved and no further." Wayne rapped the gavel plate at the desk with the pommel of his service pistol.

"SEYLA!" Several voices half-shouted throughout the room.

"Defendant may step down, though you are advised to remain for testimony purposes in the next proceedings."

"Yes, sir!" Diana immediately replied to the caution from the Star Admiral.

"Court is in recess for fifteen minutes, at which point court shall resume for the hearing on case PXC-0004744, criminal proceedings against Cecilia and Jonathon Trimes pertaining to the abortive assault on GARM R&D facility." Wayne struck the gavel plate again.

-x-x-x-

(1 March CE 73, 2200 Hours Lima)  
>(Hedemora, Sweden, Scandinavia Territory, 60°17'37.07"N  15°59'3.30"E)

"This the place?"

"Yeah, truck docks on the back, customer parking up front, This is the place," Joel said.

"Turn in on the far side," the mission commander said. "Time to torch this place," she said as the driver made the right-hand turn to get into the parking lot.

"In the name of our blue and pure world," the driver answered with a mirthless smile to the windshield. "Coming up on the target — NOW!"

The simple and direct command set off the beginning of what would be a chain of actions that resulted in blood and death, to either Coordinators or Coordinator sympathizers. Such was the mission of Blue Cosmos, not just to kill all the Coordinators, but to associate their movement with death in the subconscious of the world.

The side door of the truck popped open at the same time the rear doors came open to allow three to exfiltrate the rear. The lead man out the side door pulled the detonator fuse string on a satchel charge and lobbed it through the cheap plate-glass window of the restaurant in the strip-mall. It would be several seconds for that large charge to blow, but the embedded ceramic ball bearings would likely kill anyone within line of sight to the charge.

Two men would go around the back to the small business office on the eastern face of the building. The other four would go into the department store and wreak havoc, ultimately to exit the rear of the building and commandeer a new truck for the escape. It was a simple plan, but even the basics could go horridly wrong, so things were made deliberately simple.

-x-

Mikara was obviously a Coordinator, and among them a flamboyant one. Her purple hair and eyes gave that much away readily, but more to the point her teenage placement to Graduate School (astrophysics) made her a candidate for Scandinavia's plans for military Dropships and civilian Jumpships. If anything, she did not want to go military; she had placed high in the MVB Testing, but her family was pacifist and she lived in a deliberately neutral country for a reason. Orb would have been better, but that nation was a trouble magnet and living expenses were well outside her family's paygrade.

Her parents were Naturals, and chose to make her a first-gen Coordinator to have the best possible shot at whatever life she wanted. The necessary genetic modification procedures had required a mortgage on the family property, but Mikara had helped pay all that back last year by stock trading. Even still, the procedure would have been outside the family means except that the Geneticist knocked 60 percent of the price off, in exchange for using Mikara as a test subject for certain 'non-standard' modifications based on persons with 'high spatial awareness'. Mikara had grown up with the expectation that she would be tested four times a year for certain 'talents', and those were some bizarre tests. Identifying a playing card on the far side of a barrier? Reading someone's mind? Science fiction was not that bizarre in some cases.

With the Arrival of the Magi, and their ready announcement that Newtypes existed and had the same or similar traits, Mikara began to believe the 'feelings' she sometimes had were not just paranoia or coincidence. She was not the only person in her graduate school that had the same 'feelings', so three Coordinator teens took a quick jaunt to Mendel to verify it in person at GARM, the Mendel genetics research group. All three verified positive for Newtype traits, but the matter was not only genetic, it was existential and environmental, or so they had been told. By being pushed hard throughout their lives, Graduate School at 17 in each of their cases, stress and challenge had blossomed what was effectively a potential into a nearly-usable skill.

Of course, the Magi knew just how to take a barely-ready potential and force it out to the front. A game of laser tag between the three Scandinavians and five 'oldtype' Marines had resulted in an expected loss for the Scandinavians (they were going against professional soldiers, after all), but that was not the purpose of the exercise. By the end of the match, all three had been made aware of the extent of their Newtype skills. A rematch the next day, after some coaching from no less than the Strategic Psionic Calamira Weste, had resulted in a win for the Scandinavians.

The three girls had left Mendel with satisfaction, but trepidation; Mendel embraced the Newtypes, the Coordinators, the Trueborns, even Naturals with no regard for station. Mendel also expected to be at war before the end of CE 73; nobody had said it, but all three girls could sense it in the very air of the colony. They had not wanted to join Mendel or join the war effort, but they also could guess they would not escape the blossoming war.

When Mikara went in for her fall testing at the lab of the Geneticist that had performed the 'experiment', she aced it. As did her two friends, who came along for the ride that day.

"...he makes that gesture toward me again, I am so going to rip his crank off and beat him unconscious with it," Kotona groused.

"You know he's out of line of sight, Kotona," Lena groused. "If you did that much damage to him, you would have to explain it, and I don't think a Magistrate would take kindly to GBH based on what we sense him doing. Right, Mikara?"

"Huh? Yeah," Mikara shook her feeling off and continued rifling through shirts. "That is gross, though. No way I'd do that anyway, especially with where he puts that thing."

"Yeah, in the bum of the dirtiest skank in town," Kotona shuddered briefly. "I say we need to go look at pants, get away from him."

"I'm keeping an eye on both of them," the one guy in their group noted. Johann was the odd guy out in their group — literally — but he was a nice guy and a very chivalrous pervert in a college full of regular teenagers and twenty-somethings, so the 'NT Trio' kept him around for more than a few reasons. "This clothes rack has a detachable cross-bar. If he gets close, I pull it and flog his ass silly."

"Man, the more I think about it, Johann would fit in nicely if we ever moved to Mendel," Lena commented. "Their Marines think that way as well."

"_If_ we move there? I have every intention of it, I am going to put myself through Jump Engineer School," Kotona said directly.

"And I will probably go in as a Jump Engine Pilot after I finish college here," Mikara groused.

"That means I need to pick a field for the Jumpship projects then, maybe a — what the hell is that?" Lena changed gears so abruptly it was almost unnoticeable.

"Oh shit," Mikara half-moaned after she picked up the feeling. "Blue Cosmos attack."

The next indication to the group was the southwest wall section of the department store caving in due to an explosion inside the restaurant on the far side of the wall. "What — no way!" Johann half-shouted even as the sound of automatic weapons fire made it obvious this was a direct terrorist attack. "Out the back! Quickly!"

Mikara and Kotona did not need a large amount of encouraging to run. Lena had to be fairly dragged in the direction of the east-side fire escape doors, but after about ten meters her legs found the power to move on her own and she quickly outpaced Johann.

At the northeast corner of the store, the facility had a warehouse backing (a small one) that faced the truck docks, and with it was personnel doors. Johann could see the card readers at a distance, so he knew the doors were secured. "Get clear! Get clear!" he half-shouted. After the three girls cleared the door, Johann set his shoulder and leaned into a charge. The impact was indistinguishable from a grenade detonating somewhere else in the store, but it also did not open the door.

"Oh, that went well," Johann groused after he shook off the impact.

"You bent the door! Try it again!" Lena shouted over the sound of gunfire.

"Okay!" Johann braced, dropped his shoulder into it, and charged again. A second hit breached the door and set off the facility security alarms, It was doubtless that the authorities were already on the way, but a professional security company could always reinforce the calls coming in.

On the far side of the door, he charged two meters and slammed into a stock clerk who was confused by the noise but not yet panicking. Kotona picked Johann up while Mikara and Lena picked the clerk up; given the obviously broken leg from Johann's charging attack, she would need the help.

"What the hell's happening? Who are you people?"

"There's a terrorist attack at the store! We have to get out of here!" Lena half-shouted as the three began the process of limping toward the truck docks. Mikara could only guess the lady was also coordinator by the green hair; if she hung around, the Blue Cosmos pukes would certainly kill her.

"What? That noise? I thought it was a birthday party popper or — " the sight of several heavy bullets punching through the light industrial internal walls brought her protest to a halt. "No way!"

"No shit!" Johann retorted. "Here, give her to me! I can carry her faster than you two can!" Grudgingly, Mikara and Lena surrendered the clerk, to which Johann picked her up in a classic fireman's carry. Much as he said, he could one-person carry her faster than the two girls could limp her along.

For the group, the distance to the truck dock section was short, though not without hazard still. Blue Cosmos was attacking the clients and the sales staff, but bullets tended to go through light barriers such as plasterboard and fiberglass insulation. Several bursts of fire came close after punching through the walls, with one forklift operator dropped not far from them by a stray round. The surreality of it was far more shocking than the actual death; standing one moment, a barely noticeable hit to the head, one dropped forklift operator. No flopping around, no dying dramatics, not even a gasp, just thud — down — dead (1). It caused a moment's hesitation and staring at the deceased until a burst of fire came close to them and reminded the escapees of their troubles.

Outside the truck dock, Mikara took only a second to find a vehicle still running. "There! That cargo van!" She pointed Lena toward the vehicle, though Kotona was first to head in that direction, followed by Johann with the injured clerk. Twenty yards dash and the five were at the vehicle; Mikara made no bones about throwing the side door open so they could get in.

The Driver was sufficiently frightened by it that he whipped around on them, but hesitated before he struck Mikara with a wrench. "What the hell's going on? Who are you people?" the plumber asked quickly.

"Terrorist attack in the store! We have to get out of here!" Kotona gave him the short version.

"Jesus! Get in! Get in!" The plumber jumped forward and took seat at the wheel.

Mikara jumped in first to assist Johann in laying out the clerk, not a simple task without making the broken leg worse. After the clerk was inside, she moved to help Lena get in, though past Johann's shoulder she saw the last thing she wanted to see. "Gun!" she shouted.

The sounds of bullet impacts in his van caused the plumber to panic and slam on the gas. Kotona and Johann were able to drag Lena into the van even after it was moving, though just barely. "Close that door!" The driver shouted.

"We made it!" Lena shouted. After she looked around the van, she realized her shout was in error. "Mikara! Are you alright?"

"No, I've been shot!" Mikara half-shouted in frustration, holding pressure on her hip to try and stem the blood flow.

"Plumber-man, do you have a medkit in here?" Johann asked.

"Yeah, under the passenger seat! Jesus fucking Christ!" He slammed the steering wheel several times in frustration. "Where's the hospital in this town?"

"Forget the hospital, Blue Cosmos has been attacking hospitals parallel to other operations. Head for the Mendel Consulate at the starport!" Lena said.

"What?" the Plumber asked before he took a hard right turn in the direction of the starport.

"Serious! We can get medical attention and a lot better security at the Consulate," Lena said.

"That CB radio, does it work?" Kotona asked after a moment of considering the options.

"Yeah, it works," the Driver said. Kotona moved forward in the van, sat down in the passenger seat, and turned it on.

Kotona picked up the handset, then realized she didn't know the proper channel for a CB in an emergency. "What channel is used for emergencies?"

"Channel nine," the driver twisted the selector to the requested channel.

Kotona hesitated for a moment, considering what she knew of old American on-the-road movies and what the etiquette was for Citizen Band radios. After she remembered one particularly off-the-wall comedy movie that involved CB radios, she keyed the microphone.

-x-

The Consulate Marines had gone to full alert status at the first mention of an attack, and for good purpose. A less-than-smart Blue Cosmos cell had tried driving up to the embassy in a panel truck to ambush the gate guards, but that was easily corrected with a couple magazines of 10-gauge double-barreled buckshot. Ten minutes later, the load bed of the truck was still dripping blood from the ten terrorists that had made the abortive assault far too easy for Marines to counter.

The Marine Commo officer had all of his ESM systems active, in hopes of breaking their intel cycle and compromising the rest of the enemy cells in Hedemora. The Scandinavian law enforcement groups had openly solicited the Marines for an assist of anything like this were to happen, and Magi personnel were readily willing to drop some terrorists on an assist request.

So, when he caught a whiff of a CB radio, it had his attention immediately. Especially given the directed nature of the call. "Breaker channel nine, breaker channel nine for Mendel Consulate Hedemora, does anyone read me?"

"This is Mendel Marines at Consulate, Breaker, state your emergency," the commo officer replied. CB Radios were commonplace among the Magi, and Marines all had automatic radio receivers to pick up traffic on channel nine for emergency purposes.

"Consulate, we are civilians caught in an attack at a department store not far from the Starport. We have injured persons in the vehicle and — SHIT!" the girl on the mic did not let off the PTT switch, so the Marines heard the sound of gunfire punching through a civilian vehicle, and shortly thereafter the screech of someone who had been hit. "Consulate, update, we have more injured persons in the vehicle! Requesting medical support!"

"Oh shit," the Marine Point Commander said. "Bring them in and have them stop out here," he made the call.

"Breaker, Consulate, do you know how to get here?" the commo Marine requested.

"I've been there for travel arrangements," the speaker said. "We'll be there in a minute."

"Breaker, this is Star Commander of Consulate Marines. Stop your vehicle in front of the facility and await further instructions. We have had an attack here as well. What is your vehicle?" the Star Commander of the Marines at the Consulate requested, having listened into the evolving conversation.

"We're in a cargo van for a plumbing company, and we've absorbed quite a lot of gunfire," the girl on the far end of the radio channel said.

"Command, Sniper, I have eyes on, she's coming in hot," the one Armor Sniper in the unit reported. "I confirm vehicle, it is the same plumber we use, and he has a teen in the passenger seat who's holding a rag to her head and a CB microphone."

"Medical staff, Marine Command, stand to for casualties. Marines, full safety on bogey vehicle. Consulate commo room, report to primary embassy in Stockholm that we are receiving casualties from the fighting in town, we need trauma supplies, reinforcements and medevac dustoff."

The Point Commander at the gate dropped a flare on the ground where he wanted the vehicle to stop. "Breaker, Consulate, stop at the flare. Do not exit the vehicle, we will come to you. Repeat, do not exit the vehicle, we will come to you," the Commo officer ordered.

"I understand," the lady said. The driver slowed down rapidly but did manage to stop just short of the flare in the road.

-x-

"We're here," the Plumber said. "God damn it, this hurts," he complained for not the first time. His right arm hung limp at his side, the upper arm bone shattered by a passing rifle round, though he considered himself thankful; if he had not tried dodging left toward the shooter, the lady at the CB would have been killed by the burst that clipped his arm.

"Why are they pointing guns at us? We're the victims here!" Lena asked.

"Security protocols," the plumber answered curtly, staring down the twin barrels of a combat shotgun.

Mikara smiled weakly, expecting this to a degree. The second round of gunfire had resulted in another hit on her, this time in the leg, which Johann had tied off a tourniquet on it already to stop the blood flow. She was not hugely surprised when the side door of the van was ripped open, and the first sight anyone saw was a pistol with tactical light turned on.

It did not take the Marine more than three seconds to understand what was at hand. "Mother of God! Medics to the front immediately! Everyone in this vehicle is notably wounded except the front passenger!"

"Three casualties in the rear plus the driver!" the Point Commander declared.

The Marine with the pistol holstered his weapon and reached in to pull Johann out. This time it was the girls' escort that was lifted out of a situation in a fireman's carry, though this one was by a Mendel Marine in full armor. He went a short distance before the Marine was intercepted by a gurney for the casualty.

Mikara considered that she never noticed how the Marines carried their impressive collection of long arms, but the grip-points on the back of their shoulder plates were ingenious in keeping the weapons handy but out of the way. Still, it was a fleeting thought before pain overcame her sense of self and her curiosity as the Point Commander pulled her out of the vehicle and hiked her the short distance to the waiting medical staff.

"You're going to be alright, kid," the MedTech said as she strapped Mikara down to the gurney for transport. "You'll all be alright."

Mikara thought she heard sirens, but the blood loss was beginning to cause problems with lucidity. She blacked out shortly after she passed through the gate into the consulate.

-x-x-x-

(4 March CE 73, 0105 Hours UTC)  
>(Commercial Block 2, Land Strip III, Mendel II Colony)<p>

Months had gone by, stores had come and go, but Harald White had held onto his business in the rough-and-tumble markets of Mendel II with a vengeance. His old-world merchandise, and the electronics store next door to him, had survived where scores of other businesses had failed miserably. Such was his business that he even had two part-time clerks to help stock, build merchandise, and run cashier detail.

Even with the changing situation, Harald still kept to his down-home ways. The spittoon outside the store was presently a quarter full, the shop was simply closed up (he did not have security bars or grates, Mendel and Mendel II were very-low-risk colonies), and he slept in a rocking chair outside his store every night, looking up at the stars through the siliplex window sheet on the far side of the colony. In this area of the Commercial II District, there was not a huge amount of activity late at night, so he could sleep outside in relative peace. The Marines were even respectful enough to pass by him on the far side of the road, so they did not disturb him on their patrols.

Of course, when something did happen in his vicinity, Harald had a sixth sense about these things that immediately woke him up.

"Get the gas ready," someone said nearby the old shop proprietor.

"I've got it, I've got it. How many bottles do we have?"

"Six whiskey bottles, two wine bottles and a forty bottle of vodka," the first person said.

"Huh, there's still vodka in here," the second person said. Harald cracked one of his eyes enough to look at what was going on, and saw a teenager take a swig of what he guessed was Vodka. "Ready."

"Okay, fill them with gas, plug the neck with a rag, light the rag, and chuck 'em. Simple enough, even for your drunk ass," the first speaker said.

"I've got it, serious. I'm not that drunk." Harald could smell the fumes of gasoline in the air, which immediately stimulated him awake in a hurry. Just after he came fully conscious, he could see a lighter flick open and throw a flame.

_Molotov Cocktails_, Harald thought immediately. Some of his friends had played around with them in his youth, but they had never used them as a purposeful weapon. In this case, though, they were used as a weapon — just as soon as Harald rocked forward to stand, the first bottle went toward the window on the building next door — the electronics shop.

Harald White could not remember if the owner and his family was in, but he wasn't going to take a chance. As the taller of the two loosed the second bottle, which did break in a window and caused a shout from the room, the old country boy stepped into action. Next to his chair he kept an old break-action double-barrel 'greener' shotgun, which he had rebarreled into 10-gauge to match the common Magi shells.

The old man brought the gun to bear a second before the third bottle was loosed, and fired a shot into the nearer of the two punks while the bottle was still in hand. The first punk shouted in surprise, but Harald's target went down hard, with the bottle of gasoline under the now-dying threat. The taller punk was holding a bottle, so Harald centered and fired his other barrel; the cheap bottle broke when it landed, a pool of flaming gas reaching out for the rest of the small gas canister.

"Oh, crap," he groused after seeing flames in the window of the shop next door. The shotgun went down to the ground and he next reached for a phone on the wall of his shop.

-x-

(Next day)  
>(Equatorial Union)<p>

A teary-eyed lady stepped up to the press podium. "My son was no manner of the monster that the reports from Mendel have portrayed him to be. He was a caring soccer player, an honor student at his high school, and a volunteer at the church around the corner. He would never have been capable of the list of crimes Mendel slanders his name with."

"Miss, do you have any words for the Mendel administration?" a reporter asked.

"I ask the Mendel Administration to cease slandering our family with these lies, and to charge the owner of the shop with murder as he rightfully needs. Only then will my son rest in peace."

-x-

(6 hours later)  
>(Orb National News Network)<p>

"This is a travesty of justice! Street justice gone horridly wrong! An innocent kid blown away by an old man with an itchy trigger finger!" one of the commentators half-shouted at her 'rival' on the comment segment.

"Yes, and damn good for the old man!" the 'rival' shot back. "The kid was incinerated by his own molotov cocktail after the old man dropped him. The store next door was burned out by those cocktails! Two kids dead in the family of that store owner, and you think the street justice is the travesty?"

"You cannot possibly believe that load of bull! Of course Mendel will do anything it can to cover up the crimes of its citizens against the rest of the world!" the elder lady on the program decried.

"They have a history of lying at every level, and I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't learn this was a Marine with an itchy trigger finger, not just an old guy with a double-barrel!" the first lady said, creating a whole new conspiracy theory out of whole cloth.

Within two hours, a clamor would go up for the Marine in question to be publicly outed and punished, as well as the old guy for being part of the conspiracy.

-x-

(4 hours later)  
>(ZAFT Supreme Council Building)<p>

"The press has been looking for an incident like this," the ambassador to ZAFT from Mendel groused. "Give them anything that smacks of atrocity, they will skew, distort, and magnify it from a non-incident into a roaring inferno of suck."

"Video evidence would have cleared this incident up in less than a day," Durandal replied. "Ambassador Greer, we have our news agencies not repeating the party line from Earth, and we have some experts on the networks to cover Mendel's side of the story, but in no fashion does this look good."

"Aff, Chairman, it does not look good, but in reality proper justice never looks or feels good. It is always messy, always brutal, it is not engineered to feel good," Star Captain Greer answered curtly. "Sorry for the lady's loss, but her son was a hooligan with a long bloody list of minor infractions; he spent more time in Term of Bond than he did in high-school, and he sure as hell was no honor student or church volunteer. His first at-bat in the major-league crime levels and he gets blown away by an old coot with a Greener. My apologies for sounding cynical about it, but he paid his money and he took his chances, and the dice said 'no way, Jose' on this one. I doubt I will lose sleep over this incident."

"You may not, Ambassador," Durandal commented. "A lot of phone lines are burning up over this incident, and a world grows an ever larger negative opinion of Mendel. You may think it is no big deal, but you can expect repercussions from it."

-x-

(10 hours later)  
>(Sao Paulo, Brazil)<p>

"This is a bitch," the Marine Point Commander at the gates to the Embassy said.

"We're not the only embassy with a riot at our front door," the Star Commander in charge of security answered directly. "Thankfully, none of them have really tried pushing their luck, though Equatorial got a bit hairy."

A piece of tire tread landed next to the Point Commander, followed by a beer bottle smashing on the side of his helmet. "Some consolation that is, sir," he groused.

"At least we are getting police support," the unit sniper answered with slight cheer to voice.

At the Equatorial Embassy, the local police had stood down their guard of the facility, leaving only the Marines to guard against a thousand pissed-off rioters. The press had been on scene to catch it, of course, when a Marine Heavy Weapons Officer had sprayed a line into the road with a 10mm Gattling, roughly fifteen meters in front of the onrushing mob. The mob had wisely stopped dead before the line, but the necessity of force to defend themselves only added fuel to the increasing fire.

-x-

(2 Hours Later)  
>(Mendel Administration Building)<p>

"Not the first time I have seen this," Wayne Centara said after Gerald turned off the television.

"They are building a _casus belli_, a reason for war," Gerald confirmed his commander's thoughts. "Damnable press! We have put out multiple reports, the full investigation records, and sworn statements, yet still they run with conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated blow!"

"And too damn bad we cannot hold them responsible for the inevitable war to come," Wayne groused.

"Freedom of the press," Gerald answered with clear disgust for their misuse of it. "And you know we cannot use any conspiracy statutes on them, even though it amounts to one. Same problem as with Hitler: he was guilty as hell, as was his subordinates, but you will never find an actual internal document of orders to commit the holocaust that has Hitler's signature on it."

"Aff, I know," Wayne Centara acknowledged the validity of the historical example. "Sycophants, doing their paymaster's unspoken bidding, and everyone else shall pay the price for their lust of news. Gods help us all, we will need it when this shit finishes hitting the fan."

"History is such a bitch when it repeats itself like this," Century Commander Lightbringer decried the coming storm. "I wonder, when we gain the inevitable triumph in this matter, will we try them and find no documentation in the same fashion as did Nuremberg in the 1940s?"

-x-x-x-

(9 March CE 73, 1000 Hours Lima)  
>(Downtown Stockholm, Sweden)<p>

In much the same fashion as the meet with the President of the USSA, the meet with the Crown Prince of Scandinavia was on the down low. Unlike the other meets, this one was not early in their time in country; Lacus had done three concerts in Stockholm already, and was scheduled for a concert tomorrow and the next four days in Hedemora before a flight to Copernicus, then ZAFT, then to Mendel and afterwards home.

(Incidentally, Kira and Lacus had been in a hotel across the street from the Mendel Embassy in Jakarta. Kira had been instantly terrified of what he thought would be a bloodbath when the Marine famously drew a line on the road with his minigun, and instantly relieved when nobody had been harmed by that warning. On the other hand, the use of tear gas, rubber buckshot, bean bags, sting ball grenades, and a water cannon had resulted in injuries to the rioters but no deaths. That incident had only added fuel to the growing fire around the incident with the arsonists, which the Orb intelligence service had confirmed as Mendel reported, not as the press reported it.)

Kira figured these meets, informal and unobtrusive, were better than official visits of state (such as they would be — Lacus was no member of government in Orb, so it would still not have been 'official') because everyone could speak closer to directly. It also meant that, if necessary, the politicians on the far side of the table could deny having said anything, if required to maintain their solvency. Not that Kira expected such conduct from anyone he had thus far spoken to, but it was always possible.

This diner was not far removed from the diner they had spoken to Prince Adjutant Ahrman in Equatorial in weeks past, which was not far removed from the diner they had spoken to Chairman Harvey Jones of Oceania a week before that, which was almost the same as the diner they had spoke with Ed Harrelson and the President of the USSA. Such a pattern was bad form, technically, but on a mission like this, the likelihood of enemy action was remote. Lacus was technically 'burnt out' in terms of political horsepower or political value, being a private civilian in a nation that didn't give a huge amount of credence to its civilians, and was only really on a short tour of the major and minor nations. Nothing huge or headline-grabbing.

Kira had two SPO officers pegged already, one plain-clothes and one that apparently used the diner as a frequent stop, but both were relatively obvious for Kira, who was also an SPO by trade. A third person in the outside seating of the diner might be an SPO, but he might have also been a low-level office worker given the stuff he was reading out of a fairly thick file folder.

The other major interesting point visible from the diner was the small traveling Viking actors and actresses fair in the park across the street. They were doing the typically exaggerated Viking things, though they were more interactive with the crowd of kids and adults than most such demonstrations would have been. Particularly of note was the longboat set up on a truck trailer, and persons of all ages were welcomed up onto it to take a turn at the oars, which had been specially retrofitted to simulate the resistance of water. Kira figured he wanted to take a shot at running those oars, but he did not want to spend all day at it like the Vikings did in centuries past.

Of course, Kira figured whenever he came up with a good plan, someone else came up with a different idea for him. "I wonder if it would be possible to see what those ladies are doing with the fabric," she asked after a couple minutes of staring.

"Dying the fabric," a man said from behind Lacus. "Yamato and Clyne, I take it?" he said.

"We are. You?" Kira asked suspiciously.

"Karl Grimmson, Retainer," the man said.

"And the — your ward?" Lacus caught herself before she gave his title, to prevent blowing his cover.

"He's been here the whole time," the Retainer answered. After a moment, he waved to the guy that Kira passed over as a SPO, the one with the massive folder and documents. After the gesture, the slightly-older-than-20 man folded closed the folder and stood up to come over. "Sir," the retainer held a chair for the approaching prince-under-cover.

As the Prince walked past the two, he set the folder down in front of Kira, then ungracefully flopped down into the chair. "Gustav. I welcome you to Scandinavia, Lacus, Kira."

"And this folder?" Kira asked, tapping on it twice.

"A present for you, and mostly for Kisaka back in your home country. That's the record of every Bravo-Charlie attack in our borders or on our shipping in the past 3 months. They've started a real heavy campaign of terror and slaughter in this country in the past fifty days, and they kicked it off _Invasion USA_ style. Ever seen that movie?"

"Never heard of it," Kira admitted.

"United states, 1980s B-movie starring a legend in the acting community, Chuck Norris. Watch it, it's pretty hard, and very shocking to realize exactly how easy it is to do something like that even in the here and now. I'll warn you, it gets bloody, so don't watch it with any little kids around."

"I'll look into it," Kira semi-lied. He didn't really want to watch an old American action flick, mainly because having watched _Platoon_ as a kid had somewhat scarred him and driven him away from the genre...and violence in general until he was forced into battle in Heliopolis.

"Anyway, that aside, what brings you two into a meet with us?"

"We want to talk peace," Lacus noted.

"That's a hard commodity to come by in the here and now," the Retainer said. "Are you offering some, a path to some, or just suggesting it?"

"At present suggesting it," Lacus admitted. "I am looking for that path."

"You're looking in all the wrong places," Prince Gustav said directly. "Every government on this planet knows we're headed for war at breakneck speeds. There is a reason for that, and that reason is terrestrial and existential."

"What is that reason?" Kira asked just as directly as the Prince was speaking. After a moment, he realized that his conduct could be considered impertinent or disrespectful to a Crown Prince.

"The reason is under your right hand." Kira looked down to his right hand, and saw it resting on the folder of BC incidents. "Before you say anything, Kira, you should know that on a post-it note inside the back of that folder is the BC bounties on both of your heads. Think about that for a moment. The two presently most harmless heroes in the Earth Sphere, and you are still worth six figs dead or alive. I'll give you a minute to let that sink in before we continue."

Kira did indeed hold his silence for a minute, which stretched into two minutes after his mind went onto a separate tangent. When he figured he had the thought, he looked up from the folder. "It's not right, even if it is real. Like you said, we're effectively harmless nowadays. Why target us?"

"You are symbols, everything the BC pukes envy and despise. They target Scandinavia because we are considered the 'weakest' of the 'neutral' nations, in the hopes of terrorizing us into becoming a BC affiliate." The Retainer snorted derisively at that thought, which caused the Prince to smile. "All they have succeeded in is to assure that when the party begins, we're going to kick some ass and try to settle this matter once and for all. And you can take that straight to Cagalli, because that is the official position of Scandinavia, so sayeth the King."

Kira choked up after hearing that from the Crown Prince, but not for the content of the message. After a moment, he put voice to the loud and screaming thought in his head. "That...that sounds a lot like — "

"It sounds much like a certain space-borne party you are renowned for not liking whatsoever," the Crown Prince said. "In all reality, I don't particularly like Mendel much, either. They have an institutional arrogance about them that is never stated, but always there. I'm pretty sure you know what I am talking about."

"I do," Kira answered, remembering particularly the exchange between himself and Century Commander Lightbringer, where the old Mage officer had threatened to use Kira's arse as a hood ornament on his Neue Ziel. _Arrogant they certainly are_, he reconfirmed his prior judgment on Mendel..

"Well, they are arrogant to a fault, but they have one thing down pat. They get stuff done when they have a need to do it. And, more to the point, they are willing to completely fly in the face of anyone who wants to complain about it. Arrogant to a fault, as I said, but results are hard to argue with."

Kira picked up that gauntlet. "That's not the best set of results, becoming an international pariah."

"Who complains? The Earth Alliance? Blue Cosmos runs that joint, and they will never be happy. Equatorial? Same problem, only without Blue Cosmos in the mix. ZAFT? They are not complaining. Same with the USSA and here in Scandinavia. Copernicus loves Mendel, they get shipping and industry from L4. The Press, the talking heads? On any given day, they change their tune faster than a radio station, so they don't really count. That leaves Orb, which is schizophrenic on the subject of Mendel. I believe the threshold of 'international pariah' is somewhere above fifty percent?"

Kira acknowledged the point with a grunt, followed shortly by a sigh of resignation.

"It's...kinda depressing, really. A world full of reasonable people, and still this?" Lacus asked, waving her hand at the folder under Kira's arm.

Gustav sighed; it was time for a rather nasty history lesson on the subject of national populations, even as much as he hated giving such direct lessons. "Nazi Germany was a country full of 'reasonable people', and less than a half a percent of its population was Nazis, or otherwise 'unreasonable people' to use the same analogy. I'm pretty sure you've read the same history books as I have, so you know how well that turned out. Blue Cosmos is less than a million people worldwide, which comes out to zero point zero-three percent, or three hundredths of a percent of the population of this planet. And we're still headed face-first into a brick wall, with bells on and wearing a smile about it."

"Okay, what do we do?" Kira asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.

"If you're asking what you should do, well, that's your prerogative. You can continue trying to gin up support for peace, but you'll never convince Blue Cosmos peace is the way to go. If you're asking what Orb should do, well, I recommend just standing by and watching while the rest of us hash it out. It is Orb's predilection to stand on the sideline and make noise, after all. It's worked out pretty well so far, and if you play it right you might be able to stay out of this round."

Lacus fought back the urge to stand up and stomp off, as did Kira. After a few moments, Kira returned the favor: "As opposed to walking face first into the wall, smile and bells and all? What will that get you?"

"Peace, or knocked out from the concussion," the Retainer said.

"Evil triumphs when good men do nothing," the Prince said, which caused both Kira and Lacus to dwell on him. "The good men of the world have done nothing about this evil for decades, then suddenly a ship full of good men shows up on our doorstep and they aren't as lazy as the rest of this planet. Showdown at high noon; film at eleven. And this time, Scandinavia intends to be on the proper side of this battlefield, not standing on the sidelines making noise about it." Prince Gustav stood up after his reiteration of the Kingdom's position. "I know your record, Kira, but I also know you were tortured by what you had to do. I am an Artillery Captain in the Royal Guard, so I know what the cannons sound like, and I was involved in Operation Elvis in Australia so I had some time on the battlefield. You need to decide for yourself whether you actually want some peace in your lifetime, or if you just want to keep talking about it."

Both Prince and Retainer left the table without further word. Kira and Lacus remained, half-infuriated and half-depressed by the results of their conversation.

-x-

(15 March, 1000 Hours)  
>(Hedemora Starport, Hedemora, Sweden, Scandinavia Territory)<p>

"Boarding for Fight 633, Dropship to Copernicus then Mendel, now boarding for transport to Dropship at Ramp 7. Repeat, Flight 633, boarding at Ramp 7."

"That...is our flight," Kira confirmed, juggling his carry-on bag to get to his ticket for the flight.

"Oh, where is Ramp 7?" Lacus asked, since the signs were not as clear as they could have been.

"I think it is this way," Kira noted, waving his ticket toward the Dropship loading areas. Shuttles and Aircraft loaded on the west side of the Starport Terminal, Dropships on the east, though you could not land a Spheroid Dropship close enough to connect a tunnel to it (these were the most common type of Dropships, as Magi had an aversion to Aerodyne Dropships due to cost and size limitations). Passengers would load on shuttle buses and drive out to the waiting Dropship, often enough driving into the Dropship to unload the passengers right where they needed to be.

"Lot of Mendel personnel here," Lacus noted, personally counting some two dozen of the Magi urban digital camo uniforms, and two full-armored Marines talking with some unarmored personnel.

"This is a major flight to Mendel, so they are probably rotating personnel," Kira judged, though not incorrectly on the matter.

The superstar and the (retired) ace pilot continued their march toward Ramp 7, following the signs that were written in English, Swedish, and Japanese for convenience of the major groups of passengers that transited the Starport. It was no different from any other airport or Starport throughout the Earth Sphere, and Lacus had seen her fair share of them.

Another thing she had seen at such places was the tearful goodbyes of those who were departing, possibly forever. Though, one in particular caught her attention in this wing of the Starport.

"I know this isn't what you want to do, and it's not something we want to see you do, but I respect it," the father of a young lady said to her.

"Did they ever say why they would not take you?" Her mother asked. Lacus could guess they were probably Naturals, but the daughter was definitely a Coordinator.

"I don't know, they didn't say. They refused us all." the daughter shrugged. "Their loss, Mendel's gain."

"Kotona, Lena, stay safe out there and watch each other's backs. Johann, I expect you will keep the three of them safe?"

The large, burly twenty-something with the three ladies chuckled. "They go to pilot, I will likely be in the Infantry. I guess it will be they keeping me safe, sir," he said with clear humor to voice.

"Whatever you do, don't let your hatred take over," the father said to them all. "I've seen guys go off the deep end with hate. It never ends well."

"We've had a week to think this over, father," the lady with the purple hair noted. "We're not in it because we hate the bastards, we're in it for stopping this crap once and for all."

"Then go with a clear heart, Mikara, and make sure you come back alive," the mother said.

The intercom chimed two bells. "Second call, boarding for Fight 633, Dropship to Copernicus then Mendel, now boarding for transport to Dropship at Ramp 7. Repeat, Flight 633, boarding at Ramp 7."

"We must be off, mother, father. I will message and if we get some leave I will try to come home."

"We all will," the tallest of the three ladies said.

"That's different," Kira noted, watching the four head toward the buses that were starting to fill up.

"Yeah, they're headed Mendel way, and they're wearing fatigues, but they're forest colors?" Lacus asked, knowing that Mendel personnel tended to wear urban camo of one stripe or another. "I want to hear this story. Let's head for the bus they're on."

Down the #7 ramp and into the bus was no big deal; they even trailed in behind the big guy of the quad and took seat next to him. Eerily, the rest of the bus filled in with either Scandinavian military personnel rotating into the colonies or Mendel military persons rotating out of the Scandinavian service..

After the bus started up and began the run to the Dropship, a single question was asked. "These the group you were talking about, Galaxy Commander?" A Pilot Officer asked while waving a finger at the four in the forest color camo.

"Aff, it is," Kira looked to the speaker, and only then did he realize he was sitting across the aisle from Galaxy Commander Rico, the GC of Aerofighters for the _Mjolnr_. "Pilot Candidates Mikara, Lena, Kotona, and Infantry Operations Specialist Johann. Welcome to the First Scandinavian Irregular Regiment. You'll be with me for your induction, then I have to hot-jump over to ZAFT territory for a meeting."

"A pleasure, sir," Kotona answered immediately.

"And these two? They in as well?" a Quartermaster waved his finger at Lacus and Kira. "They don't look like they have the right mindset for what they're about to drop into."

"These two, no, they are not involved," Rico waved his finger at the pair. "An international pop star and a retired Gundam Pilot from Orb would have no place in a Scandinavian Irregular formation. Not that the one on the left could not hold his own, mind you, but I gather he retired for a reason. Best to let the sleeping wolf lie, such as it is."

"I did," Kira answered the implicit challenge.

"Well, enjoy your retirement, kid," the much-older Galaxy Commander said. "I am looking forward to the concert in Mendel in a couple weeks. I believe at least two others on the command staff have tickets as well."

"That is...surprising," Lacus noted.

"Nah, not really," Rico countered, then looked down the length of the bus. "Anyone in here think she's a good singer?"

Just about everyone in the bus shouted either 'hai' or 'seyla' at the Galaxy Commander's question. It was mildly embarrassing to Lacus, especially given she was sitting in a bus full of military personnel, not her usual fanbase.

"Nobody questions your skill in the arena of the song, Lacus. Certainly not we Magi, who are more audiophile than warmonger." Again, a bunch of the other persons around the inside of the bus affirmed it in the usual Magi way — loud and noisy. "Our only issue is with your challenging the judgments of a people who have lived sixteen thousand years in constant preparation to survive the end of Existence. Still, not here to do any preaching, today is not a good day for such conduct. I am just here to ferry four to their duty post in Mendel."

-x-x-x-

(16 March CE 73, 1915 Hours UTC)  
>(Office of the Chairman of ZAFT, Colony Aprilius 1, ZAFT Territory)<p>

"And this is...the weird part?" Star Colonel Wilhelm noted.

"It certainly ain't the easy part," Galaxy Commander Rico considered.

"Aye," Star Captain / Ambassador Greer agreed. "Here," he advanced a pawn a single space, entering the 'no man's land' of the center of the board first on his team.

"I can think of one way to improve this already," Commander Yzak Joule opined. "Make the board backlit, and show indicator lines for the pieces for legal moves." He picked up a bishop and moved it diagonally across the hex-grid board into Talia's area to reinforce her position.

"Chess on a hex-grid board, this is definitely different," Talia said with a hint of reverence. "You'd have to be well above the level of the old chess geniuses to master this."

"It is certainly a different form of challenge," Chairman Durandal noted. He was an old hand with the normal chess set, but the pace of action in Mechwarrior's Chess was a definite departure from his norm.

"I have always sucked at this game, but I keep coming back to it," Galaxy Commander Rico groused. After a moment, he moved his starboard rook forward to a position where he could use it to threaten Durandal's 'echelon left' battle line or move in the side directions towards Talia or Yzak.

"I am not far behind you," Star Captain Greer groused.

"Pikers. You actually have a clue, I don't," Talia complained. "Is this legal?" She moved a Knight forward to a position three hexes left and one forward.

"It is...almost," Wilhelm answered. "One hex to the right is proper position."

"Got it," Talia said before she had a sip of cognac.

"One of the major problems with this is the size. Everyone is used to an 8-by-8 playing field for normal chess, but not a 12-hex-per-side board that spans 23 hexes across. Almost three times the length of battle board to cover, and five, six times the battlefield space?" Wilhelm considered. "Here," and he moved a bishop to an area where he could range into Yzak's territory almost at will.

"At least the rules are compensated to allow a little faster gameplay," Durandal said with a hint of cheer. He moved a pawn two spaces forward, which was a default move for it in normal processes. Pawns could still only attack to the left or right forward hexes, but they could 'jump' forward four hexes from their start position in this variation of Chess.

"Always with the mobility," Ambassador Greer commented wryly. He moved a bishop to a position left and behind the pawn he moved into no man's land earlier, making something of a defensive position from which to operate later.

Of course, Yzak could guess what the Ambassador was doing, and he didn't want any part of that happening right now. The move of a Rook to a blocking position forced a threat on the Ambassador's bishop — move it or lose it.

"So, while we're at it, what is today's discussion?" Durandal asked while Rico considered his options.

"How stand you at the ready for the inevitable?" Rico asked after he moved a pawn forward a single hex, trying to bait Talia into moving in his general direction.

"It is coming," Durandal replied evenly. "We are quietly preparing machines and men for it even as we game here."

"The _Minerva_ will be ready to launch as soon as the battle begins. You?" Talia asked before she moved her other knight toward Rico's bait, but indirectly — she saw the trap, but not the safeties Wilhelm was providing for it.

"We have been slowly recalling personnel as their civilian positions can be backfilled with incoming refugees," Rico admitted. "Additionally, we are getting an influx of people who are willing to fight — and fight to the death, such as it shall be. We have enough personnel to reactivate all of our ships except the _Girty Lue_, and we are not far from that hallmark at present."

"I was not expecting Mendel to be caught flat-footed, good to see you're seeing the writing on the wall," Yzak commented.

Talia moved a pawn of hers to counter, given she saw the trap at hand. "Given the hamburger job done on Mendel by the family of those arsonists, it is roughly obvious what is happening."

"The Earth Alliance wants an illusion of human rights violations, before they violate our human rights," Star Colonel Wilhelm fronted. He moved a knight to provide cover to the Ambassador from the right flank.

"The illusion is in place already," Durandal judged. "Now, all they need is a traditional _casus belli_, and the game is up." Symbolically, Durandal made the first truly offensive move of the game, striking down Wilhelm's out-of-place knight with a Rook he was using for left-flank security on his battle line.

"They will begin with their nuclear weapons," Yzak dropped his opinion. "They have to, at this point in the game. They know their navy is no better than rowboats and rubber duckies before Mendel's warships, so they have to take Mendel out hard and fast — that can only be achieved by some form of nuclear engagement."

"Planetside, or from the Moon?" Rico asked. Ambassador Greer moved his bishop to strike down the rook that Durandal had used against Wilhelm, though only after the counterattack did he realize he was vulnerable to a strike from Yzak in so doing.

"Both," Yzak opined at the same time one of his rooks reached across the board to drop the Ambassador's bishop. "Their ICBMs have the capability of targeting the Lagrange Points, and of course they have a stockpile on the moon which they will chew through in a hurry. Be ready for it."

"Oh, we will be," Rico said with a savage tone of voice. "We will be."

-x-x-x-

(20 March CE 73, 1800 Hours Lima)  
>(Neutral City Copernicus, Luna)<p>

"This is Independent Field Reporter Jess Rabble, bringing to the Earth Sphere a scoop of no small proportions or ramifications," Jess began his monologue to the cameras of the major interplanetary news networks. The report was also going out on non-standard media, so it would reach nearly everyone throughout the planet.

"Within the past several months, it has become apparent that the major military players of the Earth Alliance, ZAFT, Mendel, and the United States of South America have all been preparing heavily for a coming war. Conscription riots have been seen throughout the Earth Alliance Eurasian Territories, and direct rebellion of several provinces in the Republic of East Asia has marked the major news networks' lead stories over the past month. Now, to this point it has been assumed that this was all preparation for a theoretical war, though I have obtained information and video evidence that this war has already gone hot, and nobody has made mention of it until today."

Jess took a breath — this was either going to be the hot scoop of the year, or it would be his swan song into journalistic oblivion. "Allow me to set the stage. On or about 20 January, an unknown heavy warship attacked the ZAFT colony Armory One, in the L4 area and in clear view to Mendel's territory, warships, and patrols. At that time, Mendel did nothing to stop the warship in question, and allowed it to depart the area without any form of interdiction. Playing now is part of the video recovered from the captured warship during its attack on Armory One."

Over two billion television sets across the world showed the footage of the Girty Lue gun cameras as the ship engaged and destroyed a ZAFT _Nazca_-class ship.

"The unknown warship doing the shooting is no longer unknown to any party involved in the incident — ZAFT, Mendel, or the Earth Alliance. This warship is designated _Girty Lue_, and it is an Earth Alliance ship operated as part of their Phantom Pain Special Forces / Black Operations division. Now, bear in mind that as of the attack on Armory One, all we have so far is the Earth Alliance assaulting and raiding Armory One, Mendel so far is uninvolved." Part of the video isolated on the three captured machines from Armory One. "These three machines were ZAFT Gundams, part of their New Millennium series. They were captured by infiltrators of the Earth Alliance, and escaped with the ship."

A segment of the battle footage included Commodore Roanoke in his Exus Mobile Armor, shredding enemy ZAKU units with superior maneuver and repeated hammerings of gunfire.

"Another design feature of the _Girty Lue_ is the ability to use Mirage Colloid, a restricted technology under the Junius Treaty. The warship used the cloak system to ingress undetected, ambush the ZAFT defenses around Armory One, and depart the area undetected by either ZAFT or Mendel. This is the critical thing — they were not tracked on departure from the theater, making the second incident in the _Girty Lue_'s history something of a massive accident."

The last part of the file footage of the Armory One incident was the ship going to cloak, as seen by a damaged ZAKU Phantom.

"Four days later, 24 January of this year, the _Girty Lue_ dropped its cloak just outside the debris belt, where it thought it was safe. Unbeknownst to the Phantom Pain warship, they were headed nose-first toward the Mendel Warship _Dominion_, which was on maneuvers in the Debris Belt Shoal Zone for training and combat simulation. The _Dominion_ was quick to take an ambush position and lie in wait for the unknown and unregistered Warship approaching. Captain Soritz Jamestown of the _Dominion_ has reported officially that they considered it a pirate ship at the time, or at best a privateer commissioned by the Earth Alliance, and intended to capture it as a Pirate asset."

Video footage of the initial clash between the ships showed just how lethally competent Mendel's warship _Dominion_ really could be, given the extensive and immediate damage caused by the ship-on-ship clash.

"The ambush laid out by the Magi forces was a stunning success. Between the _Dominion_, its mobile compliment, and the mobile armor of the Century Commander, the _Girty Lue_ was scrapped down to a floating hulk before Captain Ian Lee could even begin coordinating a fire plan to return the favor. Not one capital weapon was used by the _Girty Lue_ during the battle against the _Dominion_, as most of their arsenal was destroyed in the initial salvo, such is the precision and lethality of Mendel's pilots and ship crew."

The captured video footage from the _Dominion_ held that truth as writ; the ambush happened so fast and so destructively that no return fire struck the _Dominion_ whatsoever.

"More chilling is the defeat of the three new machines at the hands of Pilot Shani Andras and Century Commander Lightbringer, who were able to defeat them and capture them largely intact, as well as the ship." The video changed over to a picture that was wildly different, one of the Girty Lue sitting at moorings next to the _Mjolnr_, which dwarfed it in sheer size. "This picture you now see is only three days old, of the repaired Girty Lue sitting in battleship row outside the Mendel colony. Notice now the prominent markings of the Protectorate of Mendel and the ship's hull designation MSCM-0000 — meaning, **M**ultimage **S**tealth **C**arrier **M**onitor, hull 0000. With this tidbit of information, it is certain that the Mendel forces have both put this captured ship into line service and have every intention of reverse-engineering it for manufacture themselves. Combined with the joint-Mendel / ZAFT warship class _Garm_, this shall prove to be a swift and lethal platform for surprise attacks in Mendel's hands."

The camera focused back in on Jess Rabble. "In conclusion, though no side has made an official declaration yet, this war has already gone hot. When full-bore hostilities commence is anyone's guess at this time. This is Jess Rabble, signing off."

-x-

Lord Djibril flicked a switch on his control console that turned off the television monitors in his operations center. He did not need much time to digest the news report he had just seen, given that Jess Rabble had done most of the idiot-work and analysis for him.

"The war will commence in full in a week, I swear to it," he swore to a room full of blank televisions, and beyond those screens to the denizens of space.

-x-x-x-

(25 March CE 73, 0800 Hours Lima)  
>(USSA Military Research Facility, Bogota, Colombia)<p>

"Move it up, people! MOVE IT UP!" The Master Sergeant of the facilities group ordered. He was a hulking guy, in the classic Master Sergeant form, and looked every bit the part of someone who could rip apart a man barehanded. "The Earth Alliance ain't going to wait for you to take a 'union five', they'll be here whenever they are good and god-damned ready!"

Even with the berating, his men were working at their fastest pace for the expected operation. At an as-yet undetermined point into the future, the entire 'Development Group November Tango Seven' would deploy northward, in support of other as-yet unspecified operations. Officially, nothing official was happening except some equipment was being loaded onto trailers, and the machines Quin Mantha were being prepared for combat, but that was it.

Unofficially, everyone in the DGNT7 unit knew the war was now days from the official kickoff party. With the revelation of the _Girty Lue_ across the world, and how Mendel had savaged it in an ambush operation that made the Viet Cong look like pikers, matters were now at a fevered pitch in all political terms. The Earth Alliance was now running through resolutions demanding surrender and capitulation or forcing war, and Orb had already put out its expected statement of neutrality, therefore the battle lines were just as every worthwhile political analyst expected.

Mendel was strangely mostly silent, confirming most of the details from Rabble's report, and issuing corrections on some minor details as needed. The major correction was the revelation of the necessity of Zellbrigen — without a request from ZAFT, and without a declaration of total war, Mendel could do nothing to support Armory One by law. Chairman Durandal acknowledged this policy as proper for their ethos, and silently issued orders to all ZAFT commands to ask for the help if they found themselves in over their heads with Mendel forces nearby.

Now, with the scrap imminent, the USSA military was gearing up for war — a war they intended to be on the right side, such as it was, this time around. The morale cry had come up from the ranks loud and clear: Never again the repeat of _Mandelbrot_! Such was the fervor of the echoes that morale patches were being issued to the troops with a silhouette of the _Mandelbrot_ warship on it, captioned 'Never Again' for effect. DGNT7 took it a step further, using a patch with the _Mandelbrot_, but the caption 'Leave No Asses Unkicked' as their intention.

Now, with days before the scrap, every segment of the USSA war machine was moving into high gear in anticipation of the coming storm.

"This shit's about to get real, people! MOVE IT LIKE YOU GOT A PURPOSE!"

"What is this mysterious thing 'purpose', and where do I get one?" A clearly-younger voice questioned the Master Sergeant from behind him.

"Ah," the Master Sergeant snapped to attention and saluted the four incoming persons — two pilots, two Mobile Weapons Operators. "Begging your pardon, sir, did not know you were here."

All four returned the salute. "As you were, Master Sergeant," Captain Rico replied evenly. "What is our status?"

"We're 40 percent loaded with the equipment, but 60 percent loaded with supplies. We should be good to go in 24 hours, once our support teams and organic assets entrain to join us."

"Speed is good, and speed is critical when the brown material hits the fan, but we are effectively on hold until the Earth Alliance starts the party," Captain Rico noted.

"Sir, permission to speak freely, sir?" Master Sergeant Condoza asked fairly.

"Allow me to guess, waiting for them is a bad idea?" Rico asked. The Master Sergeant simply nodded affirm. "Militarily, I would love to surprise attack the assholes right across the Colombia / Panama border, just kick them in the nuts and listen to them scream. Politically, no way. We have to wait for them to do something grand mal stupid, then we hose 'em with the help of Mendel and probably ZAFT. If we jump the gun, we might get help from Mendel, but possibly not."

"That thing in Armory One, sir?" Master Sergeant Condoza was not referring to the Earth Alliance attack, but the Mendel explanation of why they did not intercede in the battle between the EA warship and the ZAFT facility guards.

"That is part of it, but not all," Rico answered. "They will certainly aid us in some fashion or another, but if the EA kicks the can first, then the onus is on Mendel to beat the necessary amount of ass first; we will be supporting them. For all their small size and limited numbers, never underestimate the ability of Magi personnel to hit at least an order of magnitude above their weight class. Remember that a few thousand Greek troops stiffed an army a hundred times their size, using force multipliers that the Magi consider 'standard training' for their personnel."

"Can they really do that much, sir?" the Sergeant Major asked plaintively. "I know they are supposed to be tough bastards, but that's pushing it — at least on an institutional level."

"They did it," the other Mobile Armor Pilot noted. Unlike Rico, she was not a veteran — she was another Newtype, much like the weapons operators, with exquisite training in the necessities of piloting the Quin Mantha. "My father was in Second of Jachin Due. When he came home a month later, I could see it in his thoughts, what Mendel did during that battle was well beyond anyone's expectations. My father lost his entire company, four platoons of three MS, in one attack run by two Mobile Armors. Two on twelve, and not a single scratch on the enemy. It's not a question of 'can they' because they've already done it."

"Okay, fair enough. Assuming they do hit the Earth Alliance, what do we expect?" the Sergeant Major asked. "Not that I am prying, sir, but I need to know what to direct the troops on."

"Expected, no problem," Rico answered smoothly. "Mendel will start with the Moon and Artemis. They have to neutralize the enemy's outside-atmosphere reach, or the EA will simply grind Mendel into dust with a war of attrition. We play silent and complacent in that phase, since we know the Earth Alliance will be distracted by the assbeating they are receiving at the hands of the Magi. Once that's done, once Mendel takes up orbit above the atmosphere and starts really causing damage, that is when we move."

"Sounds fun, sir. Assuming two, three weeks lead time on the matter, we're golden here, ahead of schedule and such."

"Oh, no, you won't have two weeks," the Weapons Officer for QM1 commented. "The Earth Alliance lunar fleet departed the moon bases Ptolemaeus and Arzachel four days ago. Two week transit time means you have ten days."

"Oh, shit," the Sergeant Major groused. "Unit two?" the NCO looked to the second of the Quin Mantha.

"Oh yes, she will be in service, shortly," Rico said grimly. "Lieutenant Irina, have you come up with a name for it yet?"

"Joan D'Arc," the pilot for Unit 2 replied immediately.

"Queen Latifah and Joan D'Arc?" The Sergeant Major asked in exasperation. "Gods help us. Also, someone have some artwork of her? The boys in the paint shop will need it for the paint job."

-x-x-x-

(28 March CE 73, 1605 Hours UTC)  
>(Mendel Administration Building, Floor 10 Office of the Star Admiral, Mendel Colony)<p>

Two knocks at the door presaged the door guard opening it a crack. "Star Admiral, I have Ambassador Lewis from the Earth Alliance and one."

"See them in," Star Admiral Cenrata replied immediately. He was expecting this visit, given the resolutions passed in the Earth Alliance Senate over the past couple of days, and the not-so-subtle deployment of all Lunar fleets toward the border of the Mendel SDIZ. All Mendel forces were already on the highest of alerts, and any notion of adhering to 'treaty-level forces' was out the window. Someone wanted a war, and they were bound and determined to throw it one way or the hard way. "Stand ready, Gerald."

"Always ready," Century Commander Lightbringer answered. Unlike the Star Admiral, Gerald maintained no pretense of this being a 'civil' discussion, as evidenced by his being outfitted in a standard body-armor-and-tactical-vest kit with assault rifle. Wayne was wearing concealed body armor, but had a submachine gun resting on an opened drawer below the eyesight level of the entrants. At least two of the Earth Alliance entourage were known Blue Cosmos personnel, and nobody considered them to be 'stable' in the least.

"Star Admiral Centara, I wish I could be here on better terms, but this is urgent," Ambassador Lewis said plaintively. "I have a document that requires your attention immediately."

"Please be seated," Wayne replied. "Gerald?"

Gerald received the document from the ambassador without issue. After a cursory glance, he handed it over to the Star Admiral.

Wayne Centara figured the bar would be set very high for avoiding conflict — it had to be set high, given the Earth Alliance wanted their demands insulting enough that conflict was inevitable. To point, the comical degree with which the requirements were set made the affair obvious: Blue Cosmos was running the show and they wanted it their way or they wanted death to all.

"This is pretty good," Wayne said with a grim chuckle to effect. "I especially like the whole 'dismantle and sell for salvage the warship _Mjolnr_, under international inspection'. A close second is 'Dismantling of GARM facility and destruction of all past or present persons gestated in that facility'. Ah, but the crowning achievement of hopeless diplomacy has to be demand seven, 'that the Multimage Empire shall pay in restitution a sum equal to 300,000 earth-dollars to all citizens of the Earth Alliance who lost members of their family at the hands of Magi personnel or equipment, or any equipment derived from Magi sources or methods.' "

CC Lightbringer chuckled grimly. "Oh yeah, I can see Division Commander Caecilius whooping out his checkbook to write that one," Gerald said with the utmost of sarcasm to voice.

" I hope you don't actually consider this a serious attempt at statecraft, Ambassador," Wayne requested of the man across the desk.

"You do not?" the Ambassador asked, slightly puzzled.

"No, the intent of this document is fairly obvious, Karl. This was deliberately made so insulting that the only answer a Multimage officer can give is 'hell no'. Your paymasters are spoiling for a battle, and this document is pro forma ass-covering so that they can turn to the cameras and say they tried to do this peacefully, and now they are required to kill the upstarts in space. No doubt the same demands or similar are being issued to ZAFT as we speak, as it would be well within the intent of Blue Cosmos to try and tackle both L5 and L4 at the same time."

"Blue Cosmos does not factor into this, Star Admiral," the press attache / intelligence chief-of-station answered. Wayne also knew he was one of the BC operators in the four-man group.

"Spare me the illusions, comrade," Wayne answered. "You can run that line past the unwashed masses, but everyone in this room knows that Blue Cosmos is calling the shots in Washington DC and in Heavens Base. Do not bother lying to me any more from here out; even if you do intend to kill us, at least speak with honor."

"And now you accuse my men of lying?" Ambassador Jones asked sharply.

"Aff, I do," Wayne answered. "If you men cannot speak with honor, this conversation is already over. When engineering a war, perfect clarity and conduct is a requirement. This document is perfectly clear that you had no intention of trying to settle differences, all you want is an excuse to kill people. You have your excuse, now; the Multimage Protectorate of Mendel officially and in perpetuity rejects all such demands against our sovereignty and condemns the Earth Alliance for the insulting conduct of this dog-and-pony show on paper." Wayne set the document down on his desk, face down. "I suggest you men evacuate your embassy and return to Earth at the first possible. Your paymasters intend not simply genocide, but omnicide: the killing of all in their path. You do not want to be in the path of that war machine when it is set loose."

Ambassador Lewis stood and gestured to his men. "What will you do, Star Admiral?"

"I will post this document for all Mendel citizens to see, and as is proper when I return home my commanding officer, Division Commander Gerard Caecilius will review it and review my responses. It is extremely likely he will have a rebuke for this deplorable conduct. Keep in mind, the actions you take will reflect upon you when we are inevitably found by our compatriots."

"I will pass your warning to my superiors," the ambassador lied. "Good day and good luck, Star Admiral."

Gerald waited until they were out and the doors were closed. "Ai, any bugs?"

"Neg, none were planted, sir," the artificial intelligence entity answered.

Wayne sat, staring into the wall next to the door for several minutes, until Gerald prompted him. "You are thinking something, sir."

"I was considering history," Wayne noted. "Scenarios like this, they play out all too frequently. It is all a game of power, nothing more and nothing less. Who gets to fuck with who at the end of the day. Whatever happened to leaving thy neighbor the hell alone?"

"Not in this reality, sir. Power corrupts, absolute power hypnotizes, for it yearns to be loosed on the people. I would say we live in interesting times, but in all reality this is a case of deja moo since we've all heard this bullshit before."

"Aff, we have," Wayne judged. "So, now in the matter of the Earth Alliance versus Mendel, we could draw a parallel to Finland and the Winter War. Know it?"

"Finland? Neg, I know not their major victories," Gerald answered.

"It was an undercard match at the beginning of World War II, not seen in a lot of history books because it showed a bad side of communism. The Soviets did Finland pretty hard, but the Finns fought them for every inch of it. Eventually, the Soviet Juggernaut lost the battle, after taking months and months of grinding losses against these crazy Finns, who had no armor, no modern rifles, no decent munitions factories, nothing. The term Molotov Cocktail was born in that war, an insult against the Soviet Foreign Minister attached to a makeshift anti-tank weapon, and that war gave birth to one of the best old-world snipers, Simo Hayha."

"That name I do know, back from my sniper school days," Gerald considered. "Okay, if we play the role of the Finnish, how do we fight them?"

"We absorb their naval fury as the Finns absorbed the Soviet armor assault. When the time is right, we shove back against the Earth Alliance. After that, we prepare allies and resources for the counterstrike. We won't be able to make this decisive, not initially, but we can bleed them hard."

-x-

(29 March CE 73, 0900 Hours Lima (UTC-5))  
>(Earth Alliance Political Headquarters, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, Atlantic Federation Territory)<p>

Chairman Riseman stood to the podium and cleared his throat. His Press Secretary had already told that this would be a short statement with no questions, due to the urgency of the matter.

"Members and civilians of the Earth Alliance, it is with great trepidation that I must now acknowledge that all negotiations with the Protectorate of Mendel and the Zodiac Alliance have broken down. At this time, we have reason to believe that Mendel and ZAFT are preparing for an attack on Earth Alliance territory. As such, and in concurrence with Senate Resolution 11505, the Earth Alliance now declares that Mendel and ZAFT are rogue states."

"As the Mendel nation has shown a clear track record of human rights violations, personal rights violations, sovereignty violations, and willingness to directly attack Earth Alliance ships, it can no longer be considered a legitimate nation in the eyes of the world. As just a showing of examples, the Trimes Family incident, the Shotgun Incident, the piracy of the Girty Lue, the seizing of Earth Alliance assets moving through Mendel territory, and greatest being the false-flag incident with Junius Seven, a clear and demonstrable history of provocations leaves us no choice but to take drastic measures."

Riseman paused a moment to collect his nerves. "Our final ultimatum stands as follows: all Mendel and ZAFT forces are to stand down and disarm pursuant to Earth Alliance forces taking possession of the colonies in L4 and L5. Failure to do so will result in a de facto state of war. Mendel has 24 hours to comply; ZAFT has 96 hours. That is all."

Questions were shouted at Riseman as he left the podium, but no answers would be had.

Riseman, however, had one question for Djibril, after he returned to the Oval Office. "And what if this does not work?"

Djibril scoffed at the question. "Once Mendel is dead, ZAFT will capitulate."

-x-x-x-

((somewhat) Indeterminate time, dimension, and jump location)

(Task Force Golden Roulette,_ Phalanx_-class Warship_ Golden Phoenix_)

(3 jumps into journey, planned 40 jumps)

For some of the castaways on the _Golden Phoenix_, the call to action was the great call of the unknown: a chance to step away from everything established and build it anew in another location. For others, it was duty: the Empress had called for the most hardened of souls to do a mission that would forever put them outside the bounds of the Empire. Some did it for anti-racist animosity; the rumors had not taken long for the Old Emperor's caution to be mentioned as motivation to go. A few did it for the promise of battle, but those few were just that: the Commandos had weeded out most of the blood-lusting from this expedition, because the operation orders apparently did not contain the phrase 'kill them all' (and what a killjoy that would have been to some in the Magi ranks...). Most came along for the heart of the matter: this was an operation to bolster the _Mjolnr_, though to do so in place and not to come home.

Were anyone to ask, Kyril Von Havet would have had to admit that he was in it for all of the above...and a few more reasons. For him, just the same as the others on the ship, the operation was volunteer. Unlike the typical soldier, sailor, or pilot, Kyril served a dual distinction as both a Commando Assault Ghost and as a member of the quasi-sanctioned Brotherhood Of Assassins. It was no accident that the entire complement of Ghosts in the Task Force were part of the Brotherhood...

"Testing your bracers again, Kyril?" his immediate commander asked.

"Nervous fidget, really," Star Commander Von Havet groused. Again the hidden blade popped out of the bracer. "And testing it. I doubt I'll have to go in with just these old friends, at least not immediately, but it's always good to verify your equipment works right."

"Can't hardly fault you for that," Star Captain Emilea sat down on the bed across from him. "Why the nerves, though? You know our assignment just the same as anyone else in the unit, and so far there is no evidence of Templar activity on planet."

"I don't know," Von Havet answered. "If we're not going into a saturation of Templar, what is the purpose of sending over a hundred Assassins into what amounts to a dead-end operations?"

"We don't have to worry about the Templar, but —"

"May I interject?" A third voice asked.

"Wha — ohsjit, Master Executor Tomoe!" Both Ghost Officers stood and bowed as was proper showing of respect to an Executor.

"Milady, if I may ask, who ordered such a collection of Assassins into this project?" Von Havet asked with clear deferrence in voice.

"There are four already in the collection of Ghosts with the _Mjolnr_, and one in the command structure — Galaxy Commander Rico. None of them are rated for training Assassins, just for operations." Master Executor Tomoe sat down on the bed next to the Star Captain. "I requested that Stanythe make it a priority to move in more than a few Assassins, to make sure this is done properly."

For the two Ghosts in the room, it was no surprise whatsoever that Master Executor Tomoe would drop the name of the Division Commander of the Commandos in relation to the project. Primarily, Hotaru Tomoe carried one of the four known Swords of Ragnarok, which gave her instant understanding to pretty much all of history and most of the future; if someone was Assassin or Templar, she would know immediately just by examining their history. Secondarily, that Division Commander Agrippa was an Assassin was a no-brainer: he had the soul of an Assassin from the word 'go' and the Old Emperor made sure that little trait was used to good measure in centuries past. Besides, one of the greatest priorities of the Assassins was to safeguard the heads of state of the six Star Empires; having commanders in those places that valued life and freedom beat the alternative, and Stanythe Agrippa, Division Commander and Assassin, was well-placed at the Old Emperor's side to fend off the advances of the Templar.

Apparently, Master Executor Tomoe knew what Kyril was thinking. "Correct, Star Commander. D-C Agrippa is an Assassin, hired on by The Old Man as we Executors call him, left in place due to apathy for the position by Empress Serena, and kept on as the best man for the job by Empress Rini. The Old Emperor was an Assassin himself," which revelation caused gasps from both Ghosts, and settled a long-standing argument betwixt the Assassins inside the Magi lands, "and the current Empress is aware of the Assassin's ranks but not one herself. She trusts us, but she isn't really a close-combatant in the same fashion as we need to be."

"And, from context, so are you," Star Captain Emilea noted.

"Relax on that note," Hotaru replied evenly. "Over two thirds of the Executors are Assassins, the other third are either ringers for the Assassins — mercenary Assassins, if you will — or sympathizers. What better place to incorporate personnel dedicated to life and liberty, but within ranks of personnel already dedicated to guarding life and honor?" The question was entirely rhetorical, and neither Ghost doubted its validity. "My husband and I are in the 'ringer' crowd of the Executors, though more and more we find our objectives being the same as the Assassins. Those Templar bastards can be invidious and disruptive if left unchecked, and the Assassin Guilds do pay top c-bill for our sniper rifle work when they need a long-range touch applied to something."

Kyril did not doubt that in the slightest. The ability to reach out over 50 kilometers with man-size accuracy using a sniper rifle designed to turn Gundam cockpits into scrap metal made certain Executors rather famous and highly feared. One of those three Executors was sitting in front of him. "And us, ma'am?" he asked in the silent pause thereafter.

"Where you go, you will have eons to build on the prior successes of the Magi. The Brotherhood of Assassins are a large part of that success. Spread the influence, but make sure you spread it across all the governments, both friend and neutral. What you are about to build must be protected from the domineering of the Templar, in whatever form or name they want to call themselves, and must be protected from other enemy organizations such as Blue Cosmos. Build strong Guilds in each nation; move actively among the special forces and the praetorian units of each government, but silent and unobtrusive throughout other layers of society. In due time, the Assassins will take positions just the same as they have in our history — in positions of power or close to them. Always remember your duties: protect life, protect free will, and be ready for the war."

"Ragnarok," Kyril said with an unconscious shudder. "Will this work? Building a second history to combat it?"

"I can only hope," Hotaru admitted. Already, her simple conversation with the Ghosts was beginning to have an effect on the future, but she would not directly say so.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Chapter Afterword<strong>:

Well, things have been threatening to go in the toilet for several chapters now. Herein, Mendel has had enough of a bad day that a declaration of war is only in line with expectations. The next sound you shall hear will be the flushing of that toilet...

In this chapter, there is no real major scene. It is more or less an interconnected mural to cover a large swath of unrelated but low-level interconnected happenings. Likely, for each reader a different scene will serve as the major game-changer, but my intention was really a myriad of points.

I don't claim any one scene as more or less important than the rest — each serves its own purpose. Probably the hardest for me was the interconnected scenes of the molotov cocktail incident, in that I had to show one thing but tell a whole different story — an apropos to real-life media in the here and now, who do not so much report news as they build opinion on the foundation of a skewed truth.

The other point I think is worth mentioning is the speech between Kira, Lacus, the Retainer and the Prince. I did not intend to write that in such a dark tone of cynicism, but on reflection it appears to be the most apt way to write it. At that point in the story, it is reasonably obvious there is no way out for anyone involved — the war is effectively inevitable, the only thing left is who starts it and when does it start. All due credit to Lacus for the try, but the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is surrounded by a minefield and concertina wire. No amount of talk will assuage the Blue Cosmos terrorists, and BC truly does call the shots in the Earth Alliance at this point in the story. Not that the other governments want the war, but Scandinavia is being pragmatic here — this is crunch-time, they are up to their arses in terrorists already, and it is time to choose sides.

On the writing, well, I will say that the past couple of weeks have been a bear for me. I am normally a 1-shift guy for my day-job, but these past weeks I have spent more time on second shift due to staffing issues at work. It has been hectic. I have also dropped back from a 1 chapter per week routine to 1 chapter every other week, which allows me to do more thorough writing and correcting as the narrative develops. As much as I wanted to hold a pace of 1 chapter a week, the dev cycle on 20K words in seven days did not leave me much time to do anything else in my day to day affairs, which was causing some serious problems for me. 20K words in 14 days is a lot more manageable.

Expect a new chapter of my stories every other week, now, and I shall try to hold to that pace until I am done. I have a huge amount of material to mow through, still, so...

That is it for today. **NEXT UP**: The declaration of war was only a formality. Now, the real contest begins, and in the midst of it all, a single shuttle disappears between Copernicus and Mendel...

* * *

><p><strong>Review Replies<strong>: 5 Reviews in this chapter area. Always a pleasure for the feedback and ideas!

_KleverKilva_: You just hit a nail on the head very close to a plot point coming up in Set 3. That's all I am going to say on that note, spoilers shall not be issued on it :) Thanks for the review!

_One-Village-Idiot_: On the designs, they will be manufactured in varying degrees by Mendel, though I will skip out on details for the time being. I have special plans for Freedom and Justice, though.

On the data breach, Mendel really missed that one. It was a classic man-in-the-middle siphon, using several cutouts (expendable / not briefed agents) that had no clue what they were doing to begin with. The Psions missed it because the personnel involved had no knowledge of what was going on. The AI unit missed it because the M-I-T-M attack did not actually interrupt any other functions. Nobody knows of it, and likely will not until the combat debut of the unit built from those designs.

_Akalon_: I am trying to rotate them as fast as possible. Thanks for the correction!

_Drakensis_: You did provide him, and since I fully intend to revamp Inferno you can expect to see plenty more of him.

_Sieben Nightwing_: A clean chapter is a good chapter.

As to the disinformation issues, well, the Earth Alliance will have their work cut out for them in the department of maintaining the illusion they have so carefully crafted for the world.

* * *

><p><strong>The Gripe Sheet<strong>:

All complaints have been seen to. Much thanks to **Akalon** for pointing out a typo in the last chapter.

Much thanks to **Drakensis** and **Obfuscated** for pointing out a sleep deprivation mistake of mine. Initially, I had pointed out that the Winter War was between Sweden and the Soviet Union before WW2, when in reality it was during the opening phase of WW2 and between Finland versus the Soviet Union.

And thanks to **Necroblade**, **Takeshi Yamato**, and **Sieben Nightwing** for putting up with my completely farked schedule while writing this chapter!

* * *

><p><strong>Footnotes<strong>:

(1): This result is not unexpected when massive brain damage is inflicted on a person. If the brainstem is damaged or upper spinal cord is severed, no sympathetic nervous system commands reach the rest of the body, and it simply collapses. Death is effectively instantaneous at that point, even though some critical biologic functions may continue to operate for several minutes.


	8. Blood In The Water

(Jokers Wild, Set 2, Chapter 8: Blood In The Water)

(2 April CE 73, 0900 Hours UTC)  
>(Warship <em>Dominion<em>, in orbit around Mendel)

"Century Commander on Deck!" Alicia Yamato said after CC Lightbringer stepped into the room.

Gerald took the few short strides to the lectern and stopped there. "As you were." The pilots and the Sensor Operators in the room resumed their seats. "Ladies and gentlemen, as of 30 March of this year, 1700 hours UTC, we are considered at an undeclared state of war with the Earth Alliance and their puppet-masters in LOGOS and Blue Cosmos. Until we have reason to assume otherwise, you are hereby to treat any Earth Alliance citizen with suspicion and all Earth Alliance forces as hostile unless they directly declare otherwise. Any questions on that directive?"

The room was silent for a few moments, until Shani replied. "Neg, sir, clear enough for government work," he answered with an old Magi in-joke pertaining to inefficient governments.

"Excellent, because we are about to get worked over by your former government employers," Gerald waved to the monitor behind him, which lit up. "Ai, show deployment of all Earth Alliance forces, please." After a bare moment, the screen came alive with a map of space around Mendel. "Credit due where needed, the Earth Alliance forces are not trying any dumbass Napoleonic stunts like splitting forces or trying to surround us or flank us in our backyard. They know we know exactly what they are intending, where they are, and what they had for lunch. So, no dumb shit from the enemy force, which is both a good thing and a bad thing."

"Good thing, they're all in one area and they're easy to find," Gundam Pilot Argus Deville groused. "My Gundam isn't designed to chase assholes all around the Earth Sphere."

"And a bad thing, in that we can't isolate and kill them in small chunks, when we go for this elephant, we're going to have to eat it in one bigass gulp," Gerald commented. "Hope you kiddies are hungry."

"Elephant steaks, now that is the good stuff," Argus noted with a smile.

"They're extinct on this instance of Terra, sadly," Gerald noted. Elsewhere in Existence, common elephants were not extinct, they were considered a nuisance species that caused a lot of damage to crops and occasionally to people. As such, Elephant Steak was a delicacy, but certainly not impossible to find amongst the Magi. "I could go for an elephant steak right now, myself. Beats the hell out of the battle we've got coming down the bar for us. Anyway, back on topic, the asshats have slowed down their advance, probably to allow catch up for their fleet oilers and resupply their ships, maybe give their crews an extra day of rest or two. Slight problem with that thought, if they had blitzed us, the _Mjolnr_ would not be ready for the battle. As it stands, if they take more than sixteen hours from noon today to engage us, the _Mjolnr_ will be ready for battle."

"And I said, 'God, grant us a ridiculous enemy', and God said 'play nice with the Earth Alliance'. And so it was. Or something like that," Gundam Pilot Oruga Sabnak said as a wan joke.

"Be nice to the morons, Oruga," Gerald cautioned in continuation of the joke.

"Aye, sir."

"So, assuming they take a two-day piss break, then resume advance at nominal speed with their oilers in close, we can expect Earth Alliance asses to kick in roughly 72 hours. So, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Laundry day is three days hence, and we're bringing the Maytag to the party. Any questions? "

"Do we have a priority of force engagement established yet?" Sensor Operator Flay Allster asked in the silence thereafter.

"Not at present, though we have noticed a direct lack of heavy warships in their fleet composition — no _Archangel_ or _Girty Lue_ ships, no worries there. If the best ships in their possession are the refit _Agamemnon_-class our likely priority of engagement will be determined based on individual ship effectiveness, given it is hard to differentiate between levels of suck in their ship designs."

"_Ophanim_ is not in play?" Shani asked for clarification.

"Neg, no sign of the _Ophanim_. So far as we can tell, she is still berthed in Ptolemaeus, awaiting deploy orders," Century Commander Lightbringer confirmed. "That also likely takes their present naval ace out of play, so we do not have to bust teeth on Natarle Badgiruel. Again, good thing, bad thing. Good, in that she won't be managing this cluster-fuck. Bad, in that she'll get to see what the Earth Alliance did wrong here, and correct her own deployments and strategies. Other questions?"

"Will they have nuclear arms?" Commander Carlie Gray asked.

"This is Blue Cosmos were talking about here, Commander. They're the nuke-happiest fuckers in Existence this side of Clan Wolverine. Expect the enemy to be slinging in the kiloton ranges and plan your missile intercepts accordingly . Any and all missiles aimed at the colonies are to be intercepted at range for just exactly that reason, follow?"

"Aff, Century Commander," the CIC Commander answered immediately.

"Other questions?" Nobody spoke up, so Gerald continued after twenty seconds. "One last thing. Remember clearly, regardless of how bad the odds, you are never alone. Make sure you come home alive, or none of us ever truly come home."

"SEYLA!" The pilots shouted in response.

-x-x-x-

(3 April CE 73, 1200 Hours UTC)  
>(Open Space between Luna and Mendel, 40 hours to Mendel SDIZ Border)<p>

"Admiral on Deck!" One of the midshipman in the bay declared. Those who were not immediately involved in the weapons processes came to attention, but that was few of the crew in the room.

"These are it, eh?" the Admiral asked his 'shadow', a Blue Cosmos Operations Officer.

"These are it, sir. Mark Seven Space Missile launchers. Usable by any machine that can use Striker Packs, and can be fitted with brackets for use on the old Strike Daggers," the BC Operator acknowledged. "Now, I'm pretty sure you're not loading them with conventional missiles, right?"

"Hell no, only the best for our friends in Mendel." The Admiral slapped the BC Operator on the shoulder. "To use a pair of old American political-correct terms, these are 'special munitions' for 'special people'. Their lives will get very energetic for a few moments, trust me."

"Excellent," the BC Operator commented. "How do you intend to deploy them?"

"Strike Daggers, actually," the Admiral answered. "I know your friend Djibril wanted the Windams to use them first, but I have to be practical about this operation. Mendel almost assuredly knows we are coming, and they will be waiting. I want my best units to run interference on their intercepts, while the lesser units deploy the missiles. Best of both worlds, because you and I both know the Windam units can't maneuver any better than the old Moebius Mobile Armors with these launchers attached. At least with the Strike Daggers, we expect them to suck , so the Windams can cover them."

"Fair enough," the BC Operator answered. It was a technical violation of orders, but a small one and for a perfectly logical reason. At least this way, there was some expectation of being able to fight the Mendel Mobile Forces on a level field. "All nuclear, or a combination?"

"All nuclear. We are intending the chemical weapons for ZAFT and the USSA upstarts. The PLANTs are the best colonies up here, so Sutherland wants them intact."

"Speaking of the good Admiral Sutherland, why is he not on this operation?"

"I do not know," the EA Admiral in charge of the strike force answered. "Djibril pulled him at the last minute, he is still back at Ptolemaeus. Why he was pulled, nobody has said. Not that I care one way or the other, a class of sixth-graders armed with popsicle sticks could complete this operation. "

"I hate to say it, Admiral, but be careful on that line of thinking. A lot of people have underestimated the Task Force Jokers Wild, and a lot of people haven't come back alive for it," the BC Operator noted.

"I know, I know, just being my usual sarcastic self. They're every bit as dangerous as they were during Jachin Due, but I don't expect they'll be very dangerous in a few days...unless you count glowing in the dark as dangerous."

"Just so long as they're glowing in the dark well away from me, I'm not worried about it," the BC Operator said with a smile.

"Well, their corpses will get to watch the blue and pure world rotate below them for many years to come," the Admiral concluded. "Commander Charles, what is the status of the launcher assembly?"

"Admiral, we have 104 of the launcher units assembled, 60 loaded. Should have the remainder of the launchers assembled by 0600 tomorrow, and fully loaded by 1800 tomorrow," the Commander in charge of the arsenal answered immediately. "We have 300 missiles, though, are the rest going to our ship's torpedo launchers?"

"Aye, and make sure they are appropriately spread around the fleet. We didn't bring them as housewarming gifts, after all, may as well make sure they are used properly and promptly. Repeatedly, if needed."

"Aye aye, sir. I'll have the rest distributed before midnight, and the launchers will be out to the fleet before midnight tomorrow." Unlike the Admiral and his 'guest', the Commander was not so chevalier about the use of nuclear arms against Mendel. Before he left Ptolemaeus, he wired enough funds for his wife to take their two daughters to Orb and instructed them to stay there in Orb until hostilities were concluded, just in case Mendel retaliated in kind. With phrases like 'Antimatter' and 'One Gigaton' and 'undetectable railgun shell' describing Mendel's nuclear arsenal, the Commander expected no place in North America would be safe from their wrath.

"Damn good, Commander. As you were." The Commander saluted and resumed directing the loading of the missile launchers — 120 in total — and their attachment to Strike Daggers..

"This is shaping up nicely, Admiral," the BC Operator noted. "I see why Djibril chose you as replacement for Sutherland. That old man has become something of a paranoid since his defeat at the hands of Mendel, and his whipping girl Badgiruel is not far behind."

"And with the loss of Neo Roanoke to Mendel, there are none of 'Sutherland's Mavericks' involved in this operation," the Admiral said, quoting Djibril's assessment of Sutherland's subordinates. "This worries me, a bit; his personnel are good, and well briefed. You cautioned me, earlier, about underestimating our foes; now I caution you against deriding our allies, because they have seen the elephant, they got stomped and trampled by the elephant, and they lived to tell the tale about the elephant. For all Mendel's faults, remember one thing: they are not exactly famous for leaving survivors in front of their gun barrels. "

"Hard to argue with that one," the BC Operator said. His personal Dagger L would be reminded of the lesson in a few days.

-x-x-x-

(4 April CE 73, 0100 Hours UTC)  
>(ZAFT Fortress Jachin Due, Lower Hangar Area)<p>

"Move it up, people!" Yzak ordered of the mechanical crews. "We've got guests coming, and they ain't gonna be happy! All these machines need to be ready to go in ten hours or I want to know why!"

"Commander Joule, you're needed on the _Rousseau_, the ship is moving out ahead of schedule," his radio barked after a moment.

"This is Joule, I'll board the _Rousseau_ on my ZAKU Phantom." Yzak tossed the radio to a hangar coordination officer and jumped off for the second level of Mobile Suit hangars, where his personal machine was racked and ready. After a minute of drifting diagonally across the bay, he arrived at the scaffolding around the Mobile Suits.

"Commander Joule! Your machine is topped off and loaded full! You're ready to go, sir!" his crew chief reported after Yzak landed next to the cockpit access. ZAFT had adopted a variation on a technique that Mendel used: every machine was assigned a 'crew chief' mechanic, and those persons not assigned were used as 'pool mechanics' to float from machine to machine. It was the responsibility of the Crew Chief to make sure the machine was ready to go, and when that machine was done he or she could operate on a different machine as a 'pool mechanic' but was always responsible for his primary.

"Excellent, Henrietta. I'm heading out to the _Rousseau_, and support staff will not be coming along immediately. Once the ship is out of the dock, get to your Fortress Defense Station," Yzak reminded her of the procedure for an attack on Jachin Due.

"On it, sir! Good luck and Godspeed!" She pushed away from the cockpit hatch after she tripped the hatch close button.

Yzak began the power-up sequence for the machine from memory, though for safety's sake he also had the pre-flight checklist up on a monitor. Charging directly from Jachin Due, it only took his machine 20 seconds to go full active. "Hangar Control, this is Yzak Joule on ZAKU Phantom 0-3-1, requesting clearance to taxi to _Rousseau_ hangar, over," he requested on the hangar control band after he was assured his machine was ready to move by the mechanics.

"Joule, Hangar Control, negative taxi at this time, we have ordinance haulers in your area. Standby 45 seconds, then repeat request, over." After a few moments of looking around, Yzak could see the group of 'rocket sleds' moving missiles out to other ZAKU Warrior units. Wisely, he obeyed the negative taxi command; an accident with live missiles in the hangar of Jachin Due was a career-ending mishap, provided the fool who caused the mishap actually survived it.

After 45 seconds (and the missile haulers were out of the way), he made the request again. "Hangar Command, Joule on ZAKU Phantom 0-3-1, requesting clearance to taxi to _Rousseau_, over."

"Joule on Phantom 0-3-1, cleared Taxi on port side of _Rousseau_, hangar speeds only, pilot. No hot-dogging, over."

"Roger that, taxi maneuver beginning now, out." Yzak applied only a small hint of thrust forward to clear his moorings, then applied a slightly longer burst to run down the port-side of the _Rousseau_ and under the bow of the ship to the hangar deck. All told, the taxi took him three minutes to get to the catapult on the _Rousseau_, and another minute to secure his machine.

Once freed from his machine, Yzak had no trouble moving through the ship to the bridge of the warship. The _Rousseau_ was to be his flagship for the defensive operations, though in what fashion he would be defending the colony group remained to be heard.

"Commander Joule, reporting to post, Captain."

The Captain looked to the younger Commander. "Willard Byrnes, _Rousseau_. Damn good to have a veteran on for force command, because we will need it."

"All right, what's the situation?" Yzak asked as he approached the map table.

"Here," and the Captain slugged a map of the Earth Sphere to the table. "We'll start on our side of the pond. The Earth Alliance has sent a smaller force than expected toward us, they only have 44 ships total in this fleet. No secondary fleets are known to be operating in our area, so we can assume this is their main attack."

"Capital ships?" Yzak asked, meaning _Girty-Lue_-class stealth ships or _Archangel_-class battlecruisers.

"None, not one capital ship in use in either of their operations. It's like they left all of them at home for some reason," the Captain frowned mightily. "Are they underestimating us?"

"Burning off 'undesirable' assets," Yzak guessed. "This, of course, is on the assumption that Mendel's next target is not Ptolemaeus."

"You know them best, sir. What will their reaction be?" The Captain asked.

"Well, hard to say, but the baseline is this is an undeclared state of war, given the Earth Alliance did not request any form of batchall when they declared war. That means, effectively, everything is on the table except nuclear arms and the Trial of Annihilation as far as Mendel is concerned. What is likely to happen is Mendel will smash their fleet, move to and take the moon, take Artemis, and just sit back while the Earth Alliance fumes and can't do anything about it. If Star Admiral Centara is really feeling like an asshole about it, he can suborbital the mass drivers and prevent the EA from escaping the atmosphere until they play by Mendel's rules."

"And if the EA brings their own Nukes to the party?" the Captain asked. "They _**are**_ controlled by Blue Cosmos, after all."

"If that happens, you'll get to see some real fireworks, Captain. The Magi are not shy about using their nuclear arsenal when justified, and it's hard to deny the power of an antimatter weapon when we just saw Junius Seven reduced to space dust by one." Commander Joule snorted after thinking about it. "The question becomes, how will Mendel use them? Counter-force, or strategic? I can guess Centara would use them in a force-wipeout role, but Gerald Lightbringer may play by a different rule book. And, more to the point, he has a guy in the NEST team that has done cities before with 100-megaton devices, so they definitely have the stones to drop the hammer."

"Ouch," Captain Byrnes commented. "Okay, that aside, here's what we have to look at. The Earth Alliance ships and suits are hitting us dead-on against the Jachin Due defensive line. We'll have thirty ships in place before they get to the engagement box, including one _Garm_ with arsenal. It won't be a full-up warship, but anything is better than nothing."

"Our first actual warship of that class is only half built right now," Yzak half-whined. "Still, anything is better than nothing, it can hang back and throw the lasers in their general direction from the rear areas. Now, what about Mendel?"

"Oh, this one is going to be good. The only ship they do not have crewed is the _Girty Lue_. Everything else is warmed up and ready to play, including the Big _Mo_."

"Whoa, they're bringing the _Mjolnr_ out of mothballs for this?" Yzak whistled after the Captain nodded confirmation. "Someone's playing dirty today. I rather like that."

"We'll need it to survive this," The Captain noted. "Mendel, more so. Blue Cosmos has a real hard-on for them."

"And to think, we were the most despised abominations a couple years ago. How times change..." Yzak said in mocking mimicry of Blue Cosmos.

-x-x-x-

(5 April CE 73, 0400 Hours UTC)  
>(Mendel SDIZ, Lunar Sector)<p>

" If you know yourself and know your enemy, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you shall also suffer a defeat. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will succumb in every battle, " Star Commodore Jin Kojima said over the radio to the forces in his area. "So quote Sun Tzu, in his Art Of War. We know ourselves, and we know our foes. Let us show them this distinction."

"Conn, Sensors, enemy is making their first move in our general direction. I show four Nelson, six Drake, and their Mobile Suit complement heading in our general direction."

"Nice of them," Jin commented savagely. "Makes things quite a bit easier for us. Helm, give me a two-minute burn, Comms, inform Diamond Element we are engaging priority."

"Roger that," the helmsman answered.

"Diamond Element, this is _Redland_, we have activity to our front and are moving to intercept. Stand to for engagement priority," the Commo Officer noted to Star Captain Kefka, the new commander of the reconstituted Diamond Element.

"_Redland_, Diamond Zero, I roger your last. Diamond will hold the line; good hunting to the old hands."

"Conn, Sensors, enemy force confirmed crossed the SDIZ. It's official, they want their asses kicked," the Sensors Officer declared.

"Well, the operative phrase for this Earth Alliance 'display' is to leave no ass unkicked. If they're offering, so much the better. Weapons, Conn, bring everything online. The days of playing nice with these belligerents are done."

"Weapons grid coming up to full readiness in ten seconds. We should be in range for the Naval Lasers, Naval Particle Cannons, and Naval Gauss Rifles in two minutes."

" We who are about to kick your ass, salute thee! " the main gunner declared to his targeting screen as it began lighting up with things to shoot down.

"Keep it steady, mister Bates," the Star Commodore said evenly to the main gunner. "Flight Control, launch one Trinary of forces to provide cover. The main warship action will be handled by the ships, but their mobile forces will be spoiling for a fight shortly."

"One Trinary, roger that," the Flight Boss answered. "Control stations, deploy hangars one to thirty in full launch order."

"Issuing launch orders now," the sensors officers answered. The ship had room for 75 total units, though only 60 of those hangars were populated due to losses before the _Mjolnr_ even arrived in the Cosmic Era.

"First six are loosed," the Flight Boss reported ten seconds later.

"Sir, one minute to firing range," the Sensors officer reported. "Huh — oh, shit, sir, enemy launch missiles! We have incoming!"

"One more drink, at the Sunken Norwegian / one more drink, before we have to die," the Helmsman echoed a lyric from a band favored at his preferred drinking hole back in Mendel II. "Sensors, which way are the missiles leaning?"

"To the port, pilot," the Sensor Operator answered immediately.

"Weapons, set CIWS to full auto," Jin ordered. " 'Drink up, my friends, as much as you can, for tomorrow we sail to a faraway land / we'll party all night, and get drunk off our heads, 'cause we can rest when we're all dead,' " Star Commodore Kojima surprised the bridge staff by quoting from the same song as had the Helmsman.

The Flight Boss summed it up: "Holy shit, I had no idea you know Alestorm, sir."

"My day job is Sun Tzu, Schwarzkopf, Nimitz, my night life is Sabaton, Alestorm, Firewind. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer."

Seconds after his significant declaration, the CIWS systems lit up and begun tearing into the missiles coming toward the ship. Lasers and 12.7mm machine gun rounds lit up the empty space around the _Redland_, tearing into the missiles that were not designed to dodge incoming fire.

-x-

"Sir, all missiles have been intercepted. Nothing is getting through," the fire control officer reported to the Captain.

"Damnit!" the Captain of the Earth Alliance warship _John Pitzar_ slammed his console. "Reload all missile tubes and prepare main guns! We will not be denied this victory again!"

"Reloading now, ninety seconds. Main guns online, time to firing range is three minutes, thirty seconds, sir!" the Chief of the Watch answered the call to action.

Four green naval cannon beams streaked forward from the Earth Alliance battle line, headed toward the _Redland_. "Who the hell is firing at them at this range?"

"Sir, it was the _Vincent_," the Commo officer answered. "Her captain thinks we're already in range to the _Redland_'s guns."

"Conn, Sensors, enemy has cut engines, he's drifting," the lady at the sensor panel declared. " Why would they want to drift like that? It's obvious, they're easy targets ."

"We take advantage of it," the Captain decided. "Weps, firing solutions at this range. Make them pay for playing the part of the idiot."

"On it, sir," the fire control officer answered. "It will be shaky at this range, sir, even counting their lack of maneuver — "

"Sir! Thermal spike on the ship! She's preparing to fire!" The Sensor Officer cried out before she covered her head with her hands and bent down to the console.

"Oh, crap," the Captain groused. He had a screen dedicated to the thermal picture of the enemy ship, and he had paid attention to the records of Jachin Due. Magi Ships tended to go super-cold before they fired, as their cooling system kicked in three or four seconds before they unleashed seven planes of Hell on their unassuming target. If you were close enough to clearly distinguish the 'thermal freeze-bloom' using an IR system, you were close enough to eat that firepower.

The firepower was not long in the coming. No part of the _Sendai_-class ship's arsenal was classified; the class of escort Destroyer-Monitor was roughly 11,000 years old according to the Magi, no sense trying to hide something a history book could provide. That made the anticipation even worse, in all reality: knowing what guns you were coming to face, but being unable to do anything about it.

Six Medium Naval Lasers, 12 Heavy Naval PPCs, and two Light Capital Gauss Rifles answered the myriad beam cannon shots of the four advance team warships. The range was significant for the Magi, still, and only half the PPCs found targets, but the rest did not miss a mark. The Naval Lasers were grouped on his ship, and both hit; one laser set slammed the _John Pitzar_ dead-on, the other hit at a shallow angle along the port side. Both enemy port-side PPC banks and a Naval Light Gauss Rifle hammered the _Solomon Islands_, a _Drake_-class that did not survive its wounds more than ten seconds. On the left flank, another _Nelson_ ate the remaining Naval Gauss but trucked on.

"Sir! They — they — the _Solomon Islands_! It's gone, sir!"

"Damage report!" the Captain ordered of the duty engineer. "Weapons! Where is that firing solution?"

"Sir, they've scorched most of the armor off the port side and front, sir! Couple shots with a beam rifle will scratch that armor!"

"Firing solutions ready, sir!" The Captain signalled for the shot to be loosed. Within seconds, his beam cannons had snapped to the proper heading and were on the way. "One hit, negligible surface damage."

"Sir, Mobile Forces are clashing now in the intervening space. Battle is going...about like you would expect, sir."

"I think this is going to be a long battle," the Captain groused.

-x-x-x-

(0415 UTC)  
>(Mendel II Colony, Terra 3, Residential Block 60)<p>

Mendel II had monthly evacuation drills. It was no surprise that the Magi would consider safety a top priority, they did it in everything they worked on. After the fourth, though, most of the Mendel II residents began passing it off as paranoia on the part of the Magi, and some even refused to participate, claiming it a waste of time.

So, when the sirens began in the distance, elsewhere in the colony, Shaniah simply rolled over and tried forcing herself back to sleep. Five seconds later, the sirens kicked in on the 3 Strip, the same warning klaxon used for their monthly drills, which only made sleeping more difficult for the waitress.

It was another ten seconds before she realized something was wrong. Her vid-com system had popped on, also blaring an audible warning as well as a flashing light pattern showing red zig-zag stripes and danger symbols. With the visual distraction, she knew she would not be able to go back to sleep easily and simply sat up to watch the warning. She figured in a few moments an anchor would come on and explain the nature of the drill.

Thirty seconds passed, and even her daughters had come into the room to see the announcement. When the screen changed, it was not to a television anchor, but to something different. Something very different. Shaniah was not military, had no military relatives, and had no desire to see herself or her family in military pursuits, but she could recognize a military setting as soon as any other.

She could also recognize the rather rough mug of the Captain of the _Mjolnr_. "Attention Mendel Protectorate citizens, this is Captain Glennaste Ward on the warship _Mjolnr_. As of 4AM Colony Time, the Earth Alliance has invaded the space defense zone of Mendel against all treaties and without due cause. We have every reason to believe the Earth Alliance intends to attack the colonies, Mendel and Mendel II, directly and in direct counter to all standing international law. As such, we are issuing mandatory evacuation orders to all Mendel and Mendel II colony citizens to be operative immediately. All persons are to gather their proscribed emergency supplies, bundle them in bedsheets or backpacks, and report to your evacuation areas immediately. Mendel II colony citizens are cautioned to avoid rushing the shelters; if you cannot evacuate to a shelter, please evacuate by way of the military and civilian harbors. Dropships have been assigned to the colony to evacuate civilians. I repeat, a mandatory full evacuation of both Mendel and Mendel II is now in effect. Do not ignore your evacuation warnings, the Earth Alliance intends to kill everyone in their path. This message will be repeated every five minutes; evacuation supplies lists are available on subchannel one, evacuation routes and shelters are available on subchannel two. Godpseed to you all. Glennaste Ward, out."

"Oh, my God," Shaniah gaped after the message concluded and went back to the warning pattern.

"Mommy, what do we do? I'm scared," her eldest daughter noted.

"I'm scared too, honey, but we need to get our supplies and leave," Shaniah told her children. She had heeded the warnings about having supplies ready to go, so she simply had to go to the basement of her house to collect the backpacks for herself and her two daughters.

The two daughters had followed, making her situation that much easier. She handed the small survival backpack to her younger daughter, the medium survival pack to her elder daughter, and she hefted the large pack for herself. As much as she was not military and had no intention of it, she also purchased a surplus Gunther sub-machinegun and a pouch of magazines for it, on the off-chance that she had to defend her house from (insert threat here — BC, thugs, and looters were three good theoretical picks). It may not help in evacuating, but it certainly would not hinder her — the whole ammo and weapon rig barely weighed ten pounds, and she routinely carried more at the restaurant.

"Everybody in the car, we have to go!" Shaniah ordered of her kids. The waitress-turned-evacuee knew she had three kilometers of drive to go to get to the docks, and she did not want to try hunting for a shelter that may not exist where she thought it was, or was more likely full already.

On the road, she expected chaos. She was not disappointed as people moved by car, truck, bus, even by foot toward first the shelters, then once those were full, toward the dockyards. Mendel had done an excellent job patching the hull of the colony, but they had not finished retrofitting it with all necessary evacuation shelters — the nanomachine systems were working on it, but the scheduled completion date was nine months into the future.

What Shaniah did not expect, was to encounter a nasty traffic jam that had no movement whatsoever, a kilometer and a half away from the dockyards. She never realized that it was not so much a traffic jam as it was the end of the 'parking' for the dockyards, given the amount of vehicles that had decided now would be a good time to evacuate. She pulled her electric car into a driveway and parked, then marshalled her kids for the march to the docks.

She could see the end of the cylinder in the distance; it was not so far away as to be an unreachable goal, if she could see it, she told herself.

-x-x-x-

(15 minutes later)  
>(Defensive front line)<p>

"Wildly different feeling, same shit, different day," Commander A. Rose Yoojute complained. "Status of the mobile forces?"

"We're down two Mobile Suits, ma'am, a Leo and a Rick Dom have ate it. We're suppressing most of the enemy machines with missiles," the Sensor Operator reported.

"The Mobile Armors are doing most of the work right now, crushing most of the enemy MS resistance. Weapons, continue missile fire against nearby Mobile Suits, prioritize enemies with Launcher Strike packs. Fire teleoperated missiles Kraken and Killer Whale, target the port-side _Agamemnon_-class. Direct fire weapons?"

"Direct fire...out of range on all weapon systems at this time, Captain. We should be in range in 150 seconds for the big gun, and the laser guns in another hundred seconds past."

"Bloody...leave it to the Earth Alliance to start things off early, and ruin our chances of shooting them properly."

"Captain, we've got major movement in the enemy lines. I show the entire enemy formation moving forward now, with a detachment headed roughly in our direction," the Lieutenant in charge of the CIC explained the rapidly-shifting lines. "Looks like playtime is over, they're coming in for real now."

"Damn good," Rose answered. "Deploy remainder of fighters and Mobile Suits, continue missile fire into enemy Mobile Forces, weapons officers should be ready to intercept incoming torpedoes by any means necessary. Weps, find me the biggest sunzabitch in range of the main gun, and give them a hickie worth talking about."

"Still out of range, Commander," the Ensign in charge of the gunners answered.

"Man, you are no fun," A. Rose Yoojute accused of him.

"Don't blame me, blame physics," the Ensign answered curtly. "Teleoperated missiles, put out a barrage for that detachment. Let's give them some reason to get back in line for their ass-whooping."

-x-

"What the hell is this?" Commander Mike Greenwald asked his front screen. "They think we can't see this?"

"Those missiles are freaking fast," his 2-I-C noted. "Are these the guided weapons? The teleoperated missiles?"

"Maybe. They're hunting the ships, so intercept them! Split up and engage at will, but save some for the ship!"

"On it, sir!" his team of twelve Windams (a Company, technically, in armor terms) broke down into four elements of three to begin intercepting the missiles. His platoon of three went up the center of the enemy missile alley, and before he approached the missiles the beam rifle came up in anticipation of some easy shots.

"Taking the shot!" his platoon second shouted. Two beam rifle rounds went out, one hit, but the missile did not detonate. "Holy shit! I hit it, but — "

"Shut up and shoot!" Mike put four beams into the side of one missile, but it kept going past him nearly as if undamaged. "Jesus, they even armor their freaking missiles! What the hell are these guys on?"

"Wait — " a smaller missile was able to dodge several beams, probably creatively piloted by someone on the ship, but a third hit to the missile destroyed it. "The smaller ones have less armor!"

"Use Agni on the larger missiles! They're probably the ship-busters!" Commander Greenwald ordered. He racked the beam rifle, traded arms for the shield carried by his Windam, and brought forward the hyper-impulse cannon. A couple shots missed one of the larger missiles, but a third struck it dead-center and punched through it to cook something inside off.

"They're piloted missiles! Look at this shit!" the C Platoon commander pointed to one of the missiles in question, where it had gone around in a zig-zag pattern to avoid being hit.

"OH SHI — " The D Platoon Commander's shout was cut off by the sparking disassembly of his Mobile Suit. In shooting at one of the large missiles, he failed to see another large one coming on and blundered into its flight path. 50 ton Mobile Suit versus 100 ton armored anti-ship missile...the missile won, hands down. The pilot of the Missile in question was no tyro, either; after claiming the D Platoon Commander, he maneuvered below the formation to make intercepts unattractive for the Windams, whose objective was the ship.

"We've done what we can," Greenwood commented after the last of the missiles was out of range. "Continue to the ship."

-x-

All told, Rear Admiral Kyle Jones was expecting worse things from the missile volley lofted at them. Tales still circulated at the volume and ferocity of the Mendel long-range missile systems, though only one _Drake_ was downed and one _Nelson_ were damaged beyond fighting capability, and a couple other ships in the detachment were damaged but still capable.

"Continue forward, enemy Mobile Suits and Fighters are approaching. Make sure they are greeted properly. We must be in optimal firing position in fifteen minutes," the Rear Admiral ordered.

"Aye sir. Helm continue on course; weapons, spin up all machine cannons for intercept operations." The improved CIWS on the ships was a gift of sorts from Mendel — their own CIWS technology recovered from a downed RX-78-5 Gundam G05 had enlightened the Earth Alliance as to what was wrong with their extant 75mm CIWS. The caliber was the same, the shell was the same, but a much-improved electrical three-phase motor and a separate delinker allowed the guns to crank up the fire rates from 'impressive' to 'terrifying' overnight. The 48 CIWS guns on the ship had terrible range, but could spit out 12,000 rounds a minute of 75mm CIWS ammo — roughly 200 rounds a second, more than ample to chew the armor off most Mendel small craft and mobile forces in seconds. The downside is the upgrade did not come with improved ammo bunkers, so bursts were limited.

"The _Apollo_ reports it has a shot to the enemy ship, Rear Admiral," his commo officer relayed.

"By all means, fire at will. We can't finesse the enemy, we have to hammer on it!" He specifically looked at the fire control officer on his ship, who bent to the task of turning the main guns on the enemy ship.

"Admiral, another missile volley from the _Montgomery_. She knows we're gunning for her," the Sensor Operator commented dryly.

"We can expect this kind of — " He was interrupted by a nasty hit to the front of his ship. "What the hell was that?"

"Heavy Naval Gauss Rifle, Rear Admiral," the CIC commander answered curtly. "It is the ship's big gun, and her only real long-range defense beyond missiles."

Several lasers reached out to the front of the _Drake_-class _Orpheus_, savaging its frontal armor and ripping a long shallow gouge down its port side. "You were saying?"

"Those lasers are only fractionally as powerful as the Heavy Naval Gauss," the CIC commander answered. "We are now in gun range to the enemy ship."

"Fire at will," the Admiral ordered. Three seconds later, he watched the two beam cannon assemblies reach out to the _Montgomery_, and both hit but in different locations. It was not more than ten seconds before the other _Agamemnon_-class and _Nelson_-class ships opened up of their own volition. At such an extensive range, gunnery was uneven at best; of every ten shots, maybe three would hit in a volley.

"Sir, Dagger L units report they are engaging the enemy fighter screen. Significant casualties have already been taken."

"By us or them?" the Rear Admiral asked.

"By us, sir," the Mobile Forces operator reported. "We're down half our Dagger Ls, and a third of the Windam units also ran afoul of the _Montgomery_'s missile systems.

"Continue fire, we must push a gap in their line at this point. We have orders, and our losses won't matter if we complete our objective."

-x-

"Move it up! We can't let those micromissiles stop us, or we lose!" Commander Greenwald ordered. "Take passes at its bridge area!"

"Sir, we can't get that close! The lasers will chop us up!" Another one of his Windams went offline. "Hell, we aren't close and the lasers are already chopping us up!"

"Shut up and drive that damned Mobile Suit like you stole it!" Mike ordered. "Cowardice in the face of the enemy will get you shot, if not by them, then by me!" Mike put actions to words in the seconds thereafter, when he rammed his throttle to the mechanical stop to charge down the _Montgomery_. He was not alone, the three remaining Windams joined him and one of the remnant took the lead.

The first machine ate it hard, two turret assemblies of four lasers tore into the teenager's machine and shredded it. Mike managed to stop the volley of medium-range anti-air missiles (1) with first his CIWS, then with his shield (two missiles completely ripped it apart, but at least he did not take any further damage), and he had a clear shot at the prize of the day.

His wingman surged forward in the wake of the missiles that knocked out Mike's shield, and three shots of Agni against the front glacis plate on the _Montgomery_ caused armor damage but nothing crippling. Surprisingly, his Wingman did not live to fire a fourth shot; a pair of Naval Lasers removed the torso of his machine from Existence, leaving only a charred stub attached to the hips of his Windam.

Mike made what he hoped was the winning move. Rather than spray and pray, he took the time to line up one good shot at the bridge of the _Montgomery_. One shot, at the surprisingly hot Commander in the captain's chair, and it was done. The beam entered the bridge window and the particle wash fried everything in the bridge, giving off the appearance of a small explosion.

The Commander breathed a quick sigh of relief. "Command, _Montgomery_ is decapitated. Do I continue fire or return to fleet?"

"If she has stopped firing, leave it. We can reclaim it as salvage after the battle is won ," the Rear Admiral ordered.

-x-x-x-

(5 minutes after the combat disable of the _Montgomery_)  
>(Mendel Colony, Rescue shelter 10043)<p>

"Aww, bullshit! My brother's ship just ate it! Damn Earth Alliance MS got in and got lucky!" A teenager shouted, watching one of the monitors in the evacuation shelter.

"The _Montgomery_?" An older lady asked. "What is your brother's duty section?"

"He is a structures technician and firefighter," the teen said.

"He may not have been nearby the bridge, so he may be safe," the old lady's husband considered. Much unexpected to everyone in the bunker, the destruction of the bridge brought the function of the ship to a halt, but it did not completely eradicate the ship.

"So why all this shit now? What have we done to offend the Earth Alliance?"

"We exist," Nick Kale, the lead guitar for The Kilo Band, answered from next to Meer. "These assholes hate us. Hate us at a subconscious level, they hate everyone that is not them. We're also the only major obstacle to their plans for planetary domination, so we just need to die."

"That's horrible," the same girl said.

"That's also lies, damned lies," a guy in the bunker said. "Mendel went out of their way to provoke the Earth Alliance."

Nick saw through that comment immediately. "Oh, so, having a certain ship blow the shit out of Armory One is no big deal, but when Mendel ambushes the same 'unmarked' and 'unclaimed' warship in the Debris Belt and captures the Gundams they stole from ZAFT, it is suddenly an international incident?"

"You know it doesn't work like that," the same guy said.

"Yeah, you are right, the Earth Alliance is allowed to piss on anyone they want, but Gods help you if you kick the Earth Alliance in the 'zack."

"Look, I don't know what you believe — " he started, but Nick would not have any of it:

"Look, why don't you stop apologizing for someone who is trying to kill you right now? This strange version of Stockholm Syndrome has got to end. Love thy homicidal maniacs, just keep your love affair to yourself, okay?" Nick said sarcastically.

"We'll see who is right in the end," the guy said contemptuously.

" In matters like this, there is no right or wrong, there are only casualties, " Meer Campbell said in a clearly disheartened tone. She was not looking at the guy, but at one of the monitors showing the unit map of the space around Mendel. "Living in the colonies is hard, but knowing that someone wants you dead...just because you exist…" she let her sentence trail off, unsure how to say what she wanted to say.

"And that is what this is all about," a salaryman continued her thought in a different direction. "It's all about who determines who has the right to exist. Do we get to make the choice, or does the Earth Alliance?"

"The International community has repeatedly said Coordinator programs are illegal, and the Mendel Eugenic system is worse!" the same detractor down at the end of the shelter declared.

"Man, screw that," Nick said. "Look, first off, the 'international community' has spent the last fifty years making this problem progressively worse. Since they aren't part of the solution, they're making a shitload of money prolonging the problem, so screw their groupthink bullshit in the skull." The lead guitarist sighed. "Second, the 'international community' as you call it does not give orders to a Star Empire, and does not give orders to the colonies of a Star Empire after those 'derelict' and 'weak' colony forces whooped the group-thinker's asses up one side and down the other. On this, I'll disagree with the salaryman down the way: it's not about who determines what, right now this is about institutional butthurt because the Earth Alliance is tired of being told to go fuck themselves by Mendel."

"The whole world is tired of being told off by Mendel," the BC supporter answered haughtily.

"There may be a reason for that," Nick answered sharply. "When a whole world has their heads up their arses, someone needs to point the perspective problem out to them. Nobody will like it, but the truth can smell like shit from time to time."

"Wait, what does that mean?" an old lady pointed to the monitor with the tactical map on it. "Are those…?"

"What does the missiles ringed in yellow mean?" Meer asked the question others were asking themselves without saying it.

"Nuclear missiles," Nick guessed. "I can see the radiation symbol on the icons. Well, they want to kill us all, might as well make it fast and nasty. At least it won't be dragged out, unlike the average in BC kills." Nick looked at the BC supporter in the shelter, and preempted him: "And no, before you say it, I'm not a Coordinator."

"And she is," he indicated Meer.

"So bloody what?" this came from the Salaryman, not Nick. "She also does paperwork and sings. Anything wrong with those things?"

He simply shook his head. "Whatever happens here, humanity will go on. Even if Mendel survives, they can't kill Blue Cosmos."

"You'd better hope the Earth Alliance wins, buddy boy, because if they don't the hardasses in this colony are going to make Blue Cosmos' lives a living hell, for as long as it takes."

-x-x-x-

(5 minutes later)  
>(Mendel Second Defensive Line)<p>

"This is what we get paid for, kids! Get to it!" Gerald Lightbringer ordered of the Mobile Forces complement of the _Dominion_.

"Game on!" Clotho shouted before he hammered his engines to charge down the missiles.

"I'm going right," Shani decided after he took stock of where the missiles were headed. "Looks like most of them are moving toward Mendel II."

"Wait, what is — is the _Mjolnr_ blocking Mendel?" Stella asked while she was moving to follow Shani and Argus toward the right flank.

"Looks like they are," Century Commander Lightbringer noted. "And _Vladivostok_, _Byzantine_, and _Hyperion_ are taking up picket between the enemy ships and Mendel II."

"Well, it's what we do," Captain Jamestown said on the radio channel. "_Dominion_ will move to engage the breakout force on the left flank. _Montgomery_ stung them, we'll finish up."

"Damn sad loss," Argus Deville groused. "Rose was a proper hardass. Commanders like her, hard to replace."

"Argus, cover the center with Alicia Yamato and Wendy Barus. Remainder of Gundams move right. I am going deep forward to provide first-round intercept and mobile forces interdiction."

"_HAI_!" Four of the pilots shouted at the same time; Gerald could not tell which ones did so, given the static caused by their shout.

Lightbringer hammered his engines; the venerable Neue Ziel (Upgrade) dumped raw plasma into a fuel stream and out the thrust nozzles on the back of the machine. Within seconds, he had outpaced all the Gundams in his charge forward into the teeth of an amassing enemy force. "Tactical, I need a read. Where are the nuclear launch platforms?" He ordered of the bridge bunnies on the _Dominion_.

"Lightbringer, Flay, it's easier to tell you where they are not at, sir. Pick a direction where there are enemies, and you'll see either ships or the older Strike Daggers."

"They're using the Strike Daggers as nuclear launch platforms? That's slightly smarter than I expected," the Century Commander groused. "All forces, this is Lightbringer. Prioritize intercept of any Strike Dagger Mobile Suits unless you have missiles nearby. They are using the older machines as nuclear launch platforms."

"_Mjolnr_ ForceCom acknowledges," Captain Ward answered immediately.

"Come to papa, scumbags," Gerald groused to his front monitor, lit up as it was with contacts aplenty. His first meeting with the central force was their escorts, roughly a dozen Windam units with Aile Strike packs to increase maneuverability. After four beams struck the I-Field surrounding his machine, Gerald could only laugh. "These whelps have spirit! Time to sharpen my blades," and he launched the two remote arms from the Neue Ziel before he tapped a button to initiate 'radio jamming' on their forces.

After the radio jamming began, Gerald fired into the unit of escorts with beam cannons and micromissiles. Much as he suspected, the enemy could not coordinate effectively without their radio; the remaining eight escorts scattered in as many directions and did not reform into a cohesive unit after Gerald passed.

"Warning, _Dominion_ is laying down Positron Cannon fire, all personnel avoid line of fire," Captain Jamestown declared.

"Nice to know," Gerald commented as he approached the thirty Strike Daggers in this mission wave. "BANZAI, BITCHES!" This time around, Gerald gave no pretense of restraint, he simply dumped firepower into their ranks before he plowed through with his massive Mobile Armor.

"And people accuse me of getting a little corny on the comms some days," Clotho complained to nobody in particular.

"Flash traffic, raid warning raid warning, this is _Thrones_, we have a large nuclear assault force making an end run on Mendel, we could use some backup out here!" Captain Freeman reported from his side of the second line defenses.

"This is Roulette Element, we are mobile and headed your way. Be there in ninety seconds," the Star Captain of the Mobile Armor Forces Roulette answered immediately. Gerald had structured their unit deliberately for this purpose, giving them only the high-speed Mobile Armors Bigro and Val Varo to make rapid interdiction sorties.

Still, Gerald judged it was not enough. "Clotho, Auel, Sting, move right to support the _Thrones_. Shani, Oruga, Stella, continue to hold the right flank, Wendy and Argus, shift towards the right to cover into the right and center engagement zones for our force. Good to go?"

"Damn good to go, sir!" Wendy Barus answered immediately.

"On it, sir!" Clotho transformed his machine into Mobile Armor mode and goosed his engines to move toward his new hunting ground.

"Now to kill me some space crunchies," the old Century Commander said savagely. "This is Lightbringer, taking a pass at enemy fleet center," he deliberately put out on unencrypted wide-band radio as a dare to the enemy ships and Mobile Forces to try to stop him.

Some took the dare, others continued to focus on their mission. Gerald focused on the latter; he did not want his day ruined by nuclear arms.

-x-

"Ignore him," the fleet admiral ordered. "One fly among many. Throw up some missiles and machine cannon in his general direction, try to force him away from the fleet units. Make sure we continue launching missiles, both conventional and nuclear."

"Aye, sir, it is going out by laser-line now." Given that Gerald Lightbringer was jamming the radios solid with his insidious song 'The Hunter' (_Iced Earth_), trying to scare professional soldiers with his reputation and a cheesy metal song, the fleet had dropped back to laser comms to relay orders.

"Status of missile force one?" the Admiral asked after a few moments of watching explosions in the distance.

"Missiles have been fired from all units, second stage boosters should be kicking in roughly thirty seconds. All remaining Strike Daggers have ejected missile launchers and are moving to engage in close combat. We have reports of six dead enemy Mobile Armors and numerous enemy Mobile Suits or Fighters...make that seven Mobile Armors, sir."

"Excellent! Continue all fire plans, resume nuclear barrage at first available."

"Sir, Lightbringer is coming around for another pass, sir," a more timid radar operator reported.

"Fleet units are to focus rear guns on the white Neue Ziel. Make him hurt."

-x-

"Archangel, Lightbringer, return to _Mjolnr_ for repair," Gerald ordered after he left the cockpit in the vicinity of the _Dominion_. It was a calculated risk, especially with interceptors in the area, but hitting a man-size target in the nothingness of space during the middle of a battle was no simple task. "On, Aeon, awaken," he ordered next on the C3i network, a command to his other machine.

"I am awake, Lightbringer," the AI in his Physalis HW answered immediately.

"Launch and recover after eject from Archangel unit."

"Roger. _Dominion_ Control, this is Physialis Heavy Weapons Lightbringer Custom, requesting launch clearance."

"Physalis, cleared for launch on right catapult, manual launch authorized for recovery of escaped pilot," Flay Allster ordered curtly.

What had been a successful first run against the enemy fleet did not translate into a successful second run. The gunners wised up enough to track him as he came around, and when Gerald closed back in he was subject to a sodding lot of naval beam cannon fire, enough to bring down his I-Field and strike his machine several times. The advanced composite armor of the Upgraded Neue Ziel stopped the beams cold, but enough hits and something was bound to give. On the way back through the Strike Daggers, a couple brought the fight straight to him with beam sabers, and even caused an ammo explosion in his Missile Launchers. With that much damage, Gerald was not willing to take any more chances on his trashed Mobile Armor.

Thankfully, the Gundams had moved forward to cover his retreat and eventual departure from the Mobile Armor. Argus, Wendy, Alicia, Shani, and Stella had taken a direct guard position to prevent ingress his rendezvous area while the Physialis moved out to collect him and resume the battle.

Once the Physalis was out in the air, it did not take long to find Gerald. "Please deploy static discharge cable," the Physalis requested once it reached the area where Gerald was hanging.

"Deploying now," Gerald answered immediately. He pulled a small wire cable with magnet weight on the end, which was attached to the electrical ground harness in his pilot's armor, and loosed the cable toward his Gundam. It took twenty seconds to close the distance, but as soon as it contacted he could sense the movement of voltage away from his armor and into the frame of his Gundam. "Contact, I am grounded. Move in for pickup."

The hand reached out to the pilot and both thrusted toward each other slightly. Contact took ten seconds, then his machine brought its pilot in toward the cockpit, where a simple hop put him inside.

"This is Lightbringer on Physalis, I am active. Requesting sitrep at this time."

"Lightbringer, Jamestown," the Captain of the Dominion answered. "Enemy forces on the right flank broke through and fired on Mendel direct. Nothing hit the colony, but the _Mjolnr_ took a hit amidships."

"How bad?" Lightbringer asked.

"Roughly 750 kilotons, so it left a mark."

"Better the old lightning-hammer than the colony," Gerald answered. "Where do you want me?"

-x-x-x-

(5 Minutes after Gerald's redeployment in Physalis)  
>(ZAFT Armory One Defensive Line)<p>

"Captain Gladys, relay from Chairman Durandal. Where do you want it?" the Minerva Radio Officer asked.

"My chair," Talia ordered. After four seconds, her chair monitor flickered on. "Chairman, have the Earth Alliance forces begun their attack on the PLANTs yet?"

"No, they are sitting outside the SDIZ and waiting, probably looking for the results of their battle in L4," Gilbert answered immediately. "Have the Earth Alliance used nuclear weapons yet?"

"Yes, we have confirmed nukes. The _Mjolnr_ took another hit, surface damage only," Talia responded quietly.

"I know at this point we have not been directly attacked, but we are technically at a state of declared war courtesy of the Earth Alliance Senate. As such, we now have a vested interest in both assisting our allies in Mendel and defeating the enemy nuclear forces."

"Understood, sir. What are my orders?" Captain Gladys asked.

"Move to the area of Mendel and offer your assistance to the Magi forces. If you have to, offer your forces as contract bid or use Trial to get in. Yzak says that, given the undeclared state of war, it should be no-Zellbrigen, free-for-all battle conditions; you may not need to do anything except show up and declare your purpose to the Magi."

"Understood, Chairman. Good hunting on your side. _Minerva_ is out," Talia abruptly cut the link before she said anything that would have embarrassed herself. "All right, people, looks like we're in it. Helm, all ahead flank, signal our escorts to make similar speed. Comms, link to the _Mjolnr_, call through to Star Admiral Centara."

"All ahead flank, aye Captain," the Helmsman answered immediately.

"Link to _Mjolnr_ active, call is out for Star Admiral. Stand by," the commo officer commented. After a few more moments, the main screen lit up with a picture of the command dais on the Mjolnr bridge, not the full-length view of the bridge. Captain Ward was passing orders to the Fire Control team, but Star Admiral Centara was not present.

"Captain Gladys, Strategic Officer Weste. Has the Earth Alliance tried attacking Armory One, yet?"

"No, so far they're only interested in you, but we think it will not last long. We intend to offer ourselves in Contract Bid against the EA assault force. What say you?" Talia said, trying to sound closer to Magi custom in hopes it helped get her unstated message across: _we can help now, or we help after you have bled_.

Much as Talia expected, the unstated was heard readily by the Strategic Officer. "I say, welcome to the party. If your forces have not made intentions yet, we could use help on the right flank, preferably in the SDIZ area between the enemy and Mendel II."

"And the _Mjolnr_? All is well on your front?" Talia inquired.

"As well as it can be after having taken a nuclear strike to the center of our ship, I would say," Calamira admitted. "Godspeed to you, Captain. You'll need it in this slugfest."

-x-

(10 minutes after _Minerva_ began approach march)

"This is not going to be easy," Lunamaria commented mostly to herself, though it was on the radio as well.

"It's hell out in the battle zone, the radar picture from the _Mjolnr_ is nothing but a mash-up of red dots and blue dots. Mendel has lost something on the order of a hundred machines already, but the Earth Alliance may be down as many as 350 so far," Meyrin Hawke answered. "Watch yourself, sister."

"Even adding us to the front line, this will be a grind battle," Rey Za Burrel commented. "Speed will not help us much; the colonies cannot move, so we have to stand there and take it."

"We take it like men," Shinn said. "I owe that bastard Lightbringer some payback for the humiliation in our last fleet-ex (2). Can't let him or his nation die out before I deliver a cold dish of whoopass."

"Boys will be boys," Lunamaria complained. "Control, Luna is ready."

"Rey Za Burrel, reporting ready op."

"Shinn Asuka, elevator is positioned, awaiting catapult shot," Shinn finished up the reporting for the initial launches.

"Remember, we're still several minutes away from the engagement zone. You're on hold until we get closer, no need to waste fuel on an approach march," Talia brought their deployment to a halt. "Remember, there is a lot of them to go around. If you run short on supply, return to the ship for refuel and rearm."

"Understood, Captain," Rey said immediately.

"Any word from the home front?" Luna asked.

"Yes, the Earth Alliance is sitting around outside our SDIZ, waiting for results from this battle," Meyrin said.

"Swell. We win here, they run home to mommy, we lose here, we're not available to help defend home from the double-punch it will get," Shinn judged.

"How so?" Luna asked.

"If we lose, the fleet at home will hit the colonies," Rey elaborated on Shinn's prediction. "Regardless of result, the Earth Alliance forces here will comprise a second fleet that hits L5 from the flank at a later time. Win or lose in ZAFT's first engagement, we will probably be too badly injured to stop the second wave."

"And if Mendel wins this one?" Shinn asked, not seeing that outcome of his own right — he deliberately did not want to think like Mendel, and it showed.

"If Mendel wins here, their next strike will be the Moon — Ptolemaeus, Daedalus, Arzachel," Talia covered that part of the estimate for Rey, given she interfaced a lot with Mendel personnel. "Then they do Artemis, probably with interplanetary fire from the _Mjolnr_, and mop up with any remaining Warships. Once that is done, no more Earth Alliance in space. When Wayne Centara holds space, earth is at his mercy and there won't be a living soul capable of saying otherwise, including us."

"That's kinda scary," Meyrin admitted. "I mean, for someone that's otherwise non-interventionist and _laissez-faire_, that's a huge amount of destruction."

"They're bipolar," Shinn put words to several of their thoughts. "Leave 'em alone, they'll leave you alone. Piss them off enough, they'll cut your throat and record it on their codex."

"And God help anyone in front of that blade," Talia confirmed. "Five minutes to deploy at Mendel's rear defensive line. Final gear and weapons checks, people."

-x-x-x-

(10 minutes after the _Minerva_ joined the fleet defense action)

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is Strategic Officer Weste, looks like the Earth Alliance just threw down round two," the Strategic Psionic put out in the C3 radio band. "We have some twenty enemy ships and nearly two hundred MS comin' in hot, and this includes another sixty Strike Daggers with missile launchers. You know what to do, people."

"Lick it before you stick it," Clotho said in complete smartass fashion.

"Lick it before you stick it? Sounds like a night with my girlfriend," Alicia Yamato commented. "Gotta make sure I survive to get another such night, and the colonists gets theirs as well."

"Hell yes," Shani declared.

"Five points for Alicia, turning a straight saying into something completely plausible for lesbians," Gerald Lightbringer admitted. "Enemy vanguard will be in range in roughly ninety seconds. _Dominion_, missile count?"

"Erm, do the words 'jack shit' count as a count, sir?" Captain Jamestown answered after a moment.

"I was afraid of that," Gerald noted. "No missiles, no thinning of the enemy ranks. This one is going to be a raw-dog bitch."

"Gets worse, sir, they have enough ships to form a completely naval third wave," Auel said.

"And they will, too, lousy bastards." Gerald switched radio frequencies to the naval command channel. "Warship Captains, this is Lightbringer. Request standoff fire support with energy weapons and missiles on enemy primary vector. We need the support or they're going to punch through what remains of our Mobile Forces in a hurry."

"Concur," Star Admiral Centara acknowledged. "_Vladivostok_, move forward from Mendel II guard and engage directly with missiles and anti-air weapons."

"_Vladivostok_, Captain Voss, I roger your orders Star Admiral. Moving forward now."

"That gives us something more than dick and doughnuts to work with," Gerald said wryly. "Big _Mo_, can we get some love out this way?"

"Uh, negative, Lightbringer, your engagement zone is outside our targeting profile, and we're sixty seconds away from being ass-deep in tangos. Hate to have to reject you for this dance, sir," the Flight Controller on the _Mjolnr_ answered.

"Ain't that a bitch," Gerald groused.

"A cold, hard one that's about to slap us in the face in thirty seconds," Clotho said. "We're on stage 2-1, time to combo-break these assholes!"

"Save your finishing moves for the final round, Clotho, we've got some big fish to fry still," Gerald ordered.

"Uh, guys, looks like they're getting cute. Enemy forces are breaking down into binary-size formations and splitting way the hell up," Argus Deville commented.

"Well, Darwin strikes again. Kill the dumbasses, the average IQ of the formation is bound to go up. Much to our detriment."

-x-

"This one's for our blue and pure world! Give 'em hell!" the formation commander ordered in his usual flamboyant fashion.

Tina wisely said nothing. The asshole Commander had a love of picking on her whenever possible, and her assignment to the near-suicide mission of piloting a Strike Dagger with 40 tons of nuclear cruise missile strapped to it was by direct order of the Commander. Still and all, if she landed the lucky shot that killed a Warship, she would either die a hero, or live on a hero.

Her Strike Dagger reached out to push aside a Dagger L that had been sabered in half by a Dendrobium. The Magi were turning out to be just as merciless on the defense as they had been on the offense at Jachin Due; how she had survived that fracas, she had no clue. On the other hand, nuking Mendel's colonies would take them out of the action — permanently — and then the war returned to the whole 'cleanse the earth' shtick she had signed up for many years ago.

"Okay, looks like our lead formations drew off the enemy front line, so we can slip between warships and make a run direct on Mendel II," the team intel analyst noted. "Commander, do we fire our nukes at a ship if it gets in our way?"

"Yes, if we can nuke one of their ships, it gives the final wave a better chance at hitting the colonies."

"I say we cap that one off, sir," and Tina highlighted the warship that was guarding the right-side of the Mendel II colony. "If we can get the end ship, the ones on the left side can't range to further missile attacks."

"Look at that, it's ZAFT's new ship class, the _Minerva_," the Commander highlighted the ship on everyone's displays, where it was moving right to support the defensive efforts on that side. "Too bad we don't have missiles to spare on it."

"Fuck 'em, we'll scrap ZAFT later," Tina commented. "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. But he subcontracts, and we picked up that request."

"I'll say 'amen' to that, Reverend," the Commander said facetiously. "Another thirty seconds and we'll be in position to launch. Target Mendel II and center on the ship Tina called out."

"Holy shit, a Mobile Armor just took a pass at Unit 15!" In so doing, over half the unit had fallen to beam rifle, beam cannon, and beam saber strikes in a single pass.

"Ignore it, escorts, we're spaced out for a reason. Make sure you see to any Mobile Armors in our flight path!" The Commander ejected the covers off his missile tubes. "Launch in five, four three, two one, now!"

Tina waited two seconds to launch hers, but once they were clear of the tubes she ejected the launchers and drew her beam rifle.

-x-

Captain Kyril (of the bloodhouse McKenna, though not blooded so he could not use his last name legally) considered this was a bitch of a first tour in command of the _Byzantine_. The prior Captain, James Freeman, was now on the bridge of the _Thrones_, and he as XO had jumped up to the command slot.

On the other side of the coin, he was really racking up the kills at range. _Flame Eater_ escort destroyers were somewhat kin to the _Sendai_-class destroyers, only more focused on anti-naval operations than the _Sendai_-class ships were. The distinction was a small one, but critical: given the _Flame Eater_ had better ranged weapons for anti-ship work, he was counting coup on the _Nelson_ and _Drake_-class ships. Already, the _Byzantine_'s guns had sundered four _Drakes_, three _Nelsons_, and drove off an _Agamemnon_, no small feat for a single warship.

"No big fish to fry, such a pity," the Captain half-whined. He wanted to hammer one of the _Archangel_-class into submission, even given the sheer risk of it.

"Captain, missiles launch, looks like they're coming in our direction," the sensor officer reported.

"Talk to me," Kyril requested.

"95 seconds flight time, detecting six missiles, and six more missiles a further ten seconds behind it."

"Point defenses, turn broadside and launch Barracuda missiles as intercept. Use anti-air guns for the coup de main on any survivors."

"Roger that, Captain, turning broadside to threat profile," the Helmsman said. It was the wisest move, given the ship only had four point defense bays for close-in work and going broadside to target put two of those bays in the firing line.

"Weapons, put up a good solid barrage toward those missiles," Kyril ordered next.

"On it, sir," the Weapons Officer responded immediately. "Firing Naval ACs, Naval PPCs, Naval Lasers, Barracuda Missiles. Forward Medium Naval Gauss on the drifting _Drake_-class."

Kyril grimaced when the use of the lasers and PPCs only resulted in three of the twelve missiles destroyed. Ten seconds later, the Barracudas reaped another two, leaving only seven missiles for the close-in weapons systems. A pass from a Dendrobium dropped two, leaving only five missiles remaining before they got into the range of the AA weapons.

"Looking good, sir,"

"Unload on the rest," Kyril ordered. "Weps, plot shots on the ships in range."

"Firing air-defense systems now," the weps officer said. "Got one, got two, partial on three," he said. "Rest is up to the AMS systems."

"We've got this shit dealt with," Kyril said. "Target the pair of _Nelsons_ dead to port, naval lasers and particle cannons only," he ordered.

The sky to port of the Byzantine lit up with bright green flashes from the modified pulse lasers that comprised the AMS batteries. "OH SHIT! One of the missiles is hit but not destroyed!"

"Is it on us or the colony?" Kyril asked.

"On us, sir! Ten seconds! We have no options!" A quick glance at the weapons board showed everything was still cooling off, reloading or recharging, with the next systems available in roughly fifteen seconds.

"We take the hit," Kyril said. "Better us than the colony. Sorry, guys."

"Shit happens, sir," the ship's XO declared. "Next stop, Valhalla."

-x-x-x-

(Same time as the destruction of the Byzantine)  
>(Spinward from L4, well outside engagement zones of Earth Alliance or Mendel forces)<p>

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking, we are still attempting to get through to Mendel Space Traffic Control at this time, however we have noticed several nuclear explosions in the area and we do not expect to receive alternate entry directions for some hours."

"Oh dear, I hope the colonies are safe," Lacus said.

"They should be," Kira judged. Much as he didn't like Mendel, he had to admit they were probably the best suited to defend against whatever the Earth Alliance was throwing today.

Behind him, the business passengers were chatting amiably about a pair of buildings they intended to purchase in Mendel. The sound of a briefcase opening did not bother him; he guessed it was a couple purchasing agents reviewing paperwork and trading notes.

"Do you have the tablet PC, dear? If we are going to be here a few, I want to watch a movie," Lacus requested.

"Here," Kira reached down to his feet and came up with a small tablet portfolio. "I think I'll take a nap."

"I think you won't," one of the businessmen said. When Kira looked over his shoulder to the guy in question, the first thing he saw was not the suit and tie, but the barrel of a pistol with a silencer. Beyond him, Kira could see four more with small sub-machineguns, a couple more with pistols, and one wearing —

"Oh my God, is that a bomb?" Lacus asked.

"It is, and he has a dead man's switch in his hand and very precise instructions. If anyone tries retaking this craft by force, he drops the stick and we all become space debris. That includes you two love birds, as well. You follow, Kira Yamato?"

"I hear you," Kira groused. "Why all this?"

"Simple, kid. When hunting the most dangerous game in the Earth Sphere, you send ample men to do the job. I figured ten professionals was pushing it, but hey, many hands makes light work." The suppressed pistol moved not a whit, but he looked up to his accomplices. "Seven, eight, nine, compromise the cockpit and give the pilot his new flight plan."

"So...what happens to us?" Lacus asked after one of the operators began using a laser pen to cut his way into the cockpit.

"Not my department," the lead hijacker noted. "My orders are to capture this craft and have it land in North America. What happens after that isn't my concern."

"Compartmentalized terrorism. Not surprising," Kira groaned. If they were professional enough to keep separate tasks in their own little boxes as he said, they were definitely smart enough to plan for every contingency possible.

"Hey, you're not the only professionals in the Earth Sphere, kidd-o. And the self-deluded 'good guys' don't always win."

"I hope you don't think you are," Lacus answered curtly.

"Not hardly," the lead admitted after a few moments. "I know I'm on the 'bad' side of history, but screw it. The victor gets to write the history books, and I don't really like losing all that much."

-x-

(10 minutes later)  
>(Shuttle cargo hold)<p>

Ghost Instructor Benjamin Jones figured the stop of the shuttle was due to some manner of technical issue, initially. Once he attached to the Mendel C3 network, though, he knew otherwise. He also could not blame the pilot for not wanting to drive through a naval free-for-all in the Mendel SDIZ, so he contented himself to just wait. Not like there was much he could do with just his Ghost Armor and a civilian passenger shuttle, all things considered.

Just after he was settling himself in to sleep, the shuttle began moving again, but on the C3 display it showed something wildly different. When he tapped the information icons for the ship, it was showing a distress signal, then an international hijack warning, then an unknown telemetry code of some kind. With that kind of alarms coming from the ship, it could only mean the VIPs on board — Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne — were being kidnapped for some reason.

"C3, communications command, connect to _Mjolnr_ AI unit with high encryption."

"This is JADE, Ghost Officer Benjamin. I see you are on the hijacked shuttle. What can you tell me about the condition?"

"I have not begun recon yet, but my options are limited. I am in the cargo hold, separate from the passengers. Mark this shuttle and track if possible; if they are hijacking it, the likelihood is for the purposes of taking hostages."

"Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne," JADE answered, given she would have easy access to the shuttle's manifest. "I do not have authority over the Ghosts, but do what you can. I will have _Forrestal_ keep an eye on the shuttle as it lands on Terra."

"Wait, Terra?" Benjamin asked, wanting to confirm that the planet he just left three days prior was now his next destination.

"That is where you are headed, Ghost. Good luck; if we survive, I will try to get you what support I can muster."

"Roger that. Good luck on your side, and beat their asses raw for it. Ghost is out," Benjamin deactivated all of his C3 functions to prevent easy triangulation should anyone have ESM gear.

He was technically separate from the crew compartment, but an access door had enough of a gap at the bottom that he could put a sensor probe under it — giving him camera and sound access to the cabin. Much as the whole 'hijack alarm' thing indicated, the cabin crew had been replaced with guys in business suits and carrying guns, generally a good indicator that some staff had been replaced by less-than-savory temporary crewmembers.

It was good for a sigh from the old Ghost Instructor. With this unforeseen operation now on his plate, he could really say he had done it all in terms of being a Ghost — Assault, Recon, Sniper, now Rescue. All four of the major Ghost functions, and this one would definitely count as a high-profile rescue operation, so he considered that if he survived, and so did the captives, it might be a good time to look into retirement.

-x-x-x-

(5 minutes after the shuttle began movement for Terra)  
>(Earth Alliance Offensive lines)<p>

"Our last push, now," the Admiral pointed to the area of the map. "All remaining forces, all ships. We blitz in, fire missiles against all remaining ships and colonies, and run like hell. If we can cause enough damage, they won't pursue and we get to go home scott free."

"We should only have 40 missiles left throughout the fleet. Will that be enough to get past their remaining air defenses?" The ship's Captain asked.

"It will be close. We won't get them all, but we will get some and hopefully we can at least get one of the colonies," Admiral Mihalis said savagely. "If we intend to win this war, we have to cripple them in such a way as they cannot recover."

"Aye, Admiral," the Captain answered. "You heard Admiral Mihalis! One last run and we're out of here! Straight up the middle, one good screw, hit the road! Helm, lay a course between Mendel and Mendel II, hammer the engines. Weapons, prepare all remaining nuclear missiles and close-in weapons systems. Step on it!"

"Aye, sir!" The Helmsman answered.

"Conn, Sensors, enemy forces have closed up into a smaller, tighter formation, centered to our right."

"Good, let them. Time to focus on the big fish, fry them up properly," Bjorn Mihalis said. He figured his career hinged on this, in more than one way, so he wanted to do it right even if it would probably make him one of the most despised men in the Earth Sphere.

"Understood, sir. Shall we make our primary target Mendel II?" the Weapons Officer asked.

"Do it."

"Missile launch in twenty seconds at this rate of close," the missile operator said.

"Begin anti-air fire, let's shake up the remaining enemy forces before we launch our big fish."

-x-

"Looks like this one is for the money, ladies and gentlemen," Star Admiral Centara noted. "I'm down an arm, no beam trident, and only have half a magazine left in my beam rifle. I think it's time for one more good throw of the dice."

"So do they, sir," Gerald said. "Win or lose, let's make 'em feel it."

"Easy for you to say, all I have are my shoulder-mounted beam cannons," Oruga groused. His Gundam had lost both arms, a leg, and suffered two good slashes to the chest armor with a beam saber. Thankfully neither penetrated anything critical, but his Schlag Beam Cannons were all that remained.

"Incoming!" Gerald warned moments before the first beam cannons rounds were loosed from the vanguard ships of the enemy attack wave. None of the Mobile Suits in their general defensive area took hits, but the _Mjolnr_, the _Vladivostok_, and the _Thrones_ all took hits in their sides. Small-unit missiles followed close, along with some torpedoes headed toward the ships and toward the rear-line colony guard ships.

"They are preparing for a final nuclear blitz, Star Admiral! Watch out for nuclear missiles interspersed with torpedoes!" Calamira warned. Her warning was predicated on the fact that a nuclear missile was effectively unrecognizable from a torpedo at range, a common tactic of omnicial forces — and one almost always effective, despite foreknowledge.

"Take no chances, put those missiles down!" Wayne ordered. "Kill 'em by the numbers, we have three lines!" He made good on his orders himself, dropping two missiles with three beam rifle shots of his own.

"Nothing like a good turkey shoot to kick off the last round," Shani said in his creepy monotone. Of the _Dominion_ Gundam pilots, he was in the best shape due to his beam-resistant defensive systems. More to the point, his scythe was perfect for chopping a missile up by way of using its own thrust against itself.

"We've got the missiles we could from this batch," Auel noted. Of the second-generation Extended, he was the only one still on the battlefield; Stella had been knocked unconscious by a bad torpedo hit and recovered, Sting had been disarmed by damage and returned to the ship somewhat intact.

"Next round will be coming by in ten seconds, ladies and gentlemen," Captain Ward cautioned.

"Warships, do your best to intercept, or as a last resort, absorb any remaining missiles," Wayne ordered.

-x-

"_Hyperion_ rogers your last," Star Commodore Tilgeis answered the call to action from the Star Admiral. "Weapons, full systems up, prepare for third-line intercept. Helm, put us in line with any missiles we can't intercept. I don't want to go out like the _Byzantine_, but far better us than the colony behind us, quiaff?"

"Aff, Star Commodore," the helmsman responded. "Sensors, slug me the flightpaths of the missiles coming our way. Time to absorb some firepower the hard way."

"Coming your way now — oh shit! _Mjolnr_ just took a second hit!"

Tilgeis leaned forward enough that he could look left and see the massive Superdreadnought. "Sweet jesus, that one left a mark. Probably a three-meg device, forward of midships."

"Look at that electrical sparking, the rail gun on the starboard side is trashed."

"And that's something you don't repair on a _Phalanx_, like the jump engine. Once it's gone, it's generally gone for good," the Engineer on the bridge said with reverence for the damage.

"Old ship, though, and it is standing between the nuclear light and the civilians," Tilgeis noted. "Weps, time until our intercept?"

"First shots going now, sir," the Weapons Officer answered. "No hits, three missiles in our area. Firing next salvo — shit! again! Sensors, check the tracking system calibration!"

"X-band radars are down! System malfunction!" The Sensors Operator shouted.

"Manual on the guns! Use boresights if you have to! Gods damn the gremlins in this ship!" Tilgeis ordered rapidly.

"We'll get one by default, sir! I'm blocking one missile!" the Helmsman said. "Impact...three, two, one, now!"

The explosion was significant, but not nuclear. "A gunner got lucky! He hit one with an autocannon on the right!" The Sensor Operator shouted in triumph.

A beam lanced out at the last missile from one of the ZAFT machines, a red ZAKU with one shield, followed quickly by a second beam, but neither hit. A third beam grazed the engine nacelles on the back of the missile, which only served to shear them off but did not destroy it; the missile continued onward unstopped.

"The colony is going to take the hit — five seconds!" the Sensor Operator bemoaned.

-x-

Shaniah had managed to make it up toward the head of the line, on dint of having kids and playing that card heavily, but the next Dropship was not due in for another thirty minutes, so she was playing the waiting game just like everyone else.

"I'm scared, mommy," her eldest daughter commented.

"We all are, dear, but we'll be safe. The troops are out there stopping the bad guys," Shaniah forced herself to say. She fell into the category of 'technical pacifist' in proper definition, and she did not like giving the military credit for anything, but she was not afraid to use violence on her own direct behalf. In this case, however, she had to give the credit due; the Earth Alliance was clearly in the wrong here and needed the assbeating..

"When do we get to go home?" the younger daughter asked.

"When the bad people are dealt with and the troops give the all clear," Shaniah answered, though not for the first time.

"Here," a dockworker handed each of the kids a juice pouch and Shaniah a large water bottle. "Sorry for the delay, the only ship in response range that wasn't already here had to turn around from transit to Orb."

"It happens," Shaniah agreed. "Thanks for the water."

"No proble—" He was interrupted by something erupting from the ground roughly fifty meters behind him — or, technically, something punching through the hull of the colony and into the innards. Shaniah was able to track it visually easily, it had decelerated to such a degree and did not have working engines to continue moving.

Two seconds after it penetrated to open air, the internal penetration timer inside the missile set off the chain reaction necessary to detonate the nuclear package at the core of the missile. The weapons were set to detonate inside the target colony, where the air pressure could be turned into a massive blast wave that sundered most (if not all) the Island-III cylinder. Once the reaction started, in less than 100 milliseconds, the nuclear package was on its way to tearing apart the very air inside the colony.

-x-

"Colony hit — Good Gods!" Wayne closed his eyes against the initial flash relayed through his screens, even though the nuclear blast filters were on his optics to absorb most of the light.

"Mendel II is hit! Holy shit, it's tearing itself apart!" Captain Ward announced.

"No...NO!" One of the Extended pilots shouted. Wayne guessed it was Stella by her voice.

"Did — did we get the civilians out?" Wayne asked.

"Hell no, sir, we were still a million plus short!" Gerald Lightbringer raged. "Fucking dezgra asswads! I want their hearts for hamburger for this!"

"Star Admiral!" Captain Ward shouted. "Calamira has collapsed, she has — "

"Blank stare?" Gerald asked. "Call a MedTech and have her sedated, then return her to her quarters. She just heard over a million people die in close proximity, it probably overloaded her upper conscious."

Wayne continued to stare at the rapidly shredding hulk of the Mendel II colony, even as some of the debris began impacting the not-yet-repaired number three colony next to it. It was some seconds before he regained any sense of proper mental execution, mostly as his magnified viewer began seeing individual bodies floating in space, some moving and struggling against no atmosphere, some not.

"Kill them," Wayne said softly, even amidst much panicked and enraged radio traffic.

"Sir?" Gerald's Gundam nudged his. "What did you say?"

"I said kill them! Kill them all and count the bodies, right now!" Wayne shouted. "Gerald! Can you tell if they have any more nukes?"

Gerald's Gundam looked toward the enemy ships, likely in mimicry of the pilot doing the same. "Neg, they have expended all their special weapons."

"All warships on the offensive immediately," Wayne ordered in the short silence thereafter. "_Mjolnr_ has the lead. I want a body count in no more than three hours, or I want to know why."

"Aff, sir," Gerald answered. "You heard the man! I want their dicks for sausage and a body count for the boss to sign off on! Get to it!"

-x-

"YES! We got the colony! Look at those bodies tumbling! Now they know our pain!" Admiral Mikalis whooped. "That'll teach them to defy the will of the blue and pure world!"

"OH SHIT!" The Sensor Operator shot up, out of her chair, though her feet were anchored to the floor so she could not float away. "Conn, Sensors! _Mjolnr_ is turning toward! Every ship and unit is coming for us! We're locked up by the _Mjolnr_!"

Visually, it was possible to see the one surviving Naval Rail Gun on the enemy superdreadnought open up. The Captain of the ship looked to the Admiral, fury in his face. "You arrogant ass! You killed the colony, but nobody will live to tell about it!"

"I—" His protest was cut off by the impact of a five-ton explosive shell at the base of the conning tower. Since the shell buried itself most of the way through the base of the tower before it detonated, the blast literally sundered the entire tower structure above it as well as chopped through most of the ship's center structure.

-x-

"This is Unicorn, I have sweet lock," Alicia Yamato said savagely as her Double-X Cannon finished charging. "What? Flares? Surrender flares? I'll give you assholes the same courtesy you gave the citizens of these colonies!" She pulled down on the trigger and began moving the aiming crosshairs. The paired X Cannon beams tracked across a _Drake_, a _Nelson_, another _Drake_, an _Agamemnon_, a second _Nelson_, and onto the scrap of the enemy flagship. "Secure cannons, going in close for some wet-work," Alicia tripped the cannon selector to 'rack', and reached her machine for the Schwert Gewehr they had unabashedly pirated designs from the _Archangel_'s mobile forces.

"I'm with you!" ZAFT pilot Shinn Asuka shouted in rage. "Follow me in!" his Impulse Gundam streaked past the Double-X (AYC) and toward a pair of outlying _Nelson_-class ships.

Alicia and Shinn dodged through the lines of machine cannon fire, though the fire did not last long before the guns ran dry. Shinn brought his machine to a semi-graceful stop behind the conning tower of the _Nelson_-class _Apollo_, though Alicia simply rammed her sword into the side of the ship in front of the conning tower and ripped downward until the beam blade chopped through the keel. Shinn turned his beam sabers on the tower, chopping down from the command deck toward the hull of the ship, then along the back of the hull toward the engines. Alicia did the inverse, as she ground her blade through the keel forward to literally gut the ship.

"God damned monsters! Die for your crimes!" Rey Za Burrel shouted as he landed on top of the now-disabled _Nelson_ and began firing into the side of the other _Nelson_.

"You'll pay! Space colonies are not yours! You do not control our lives!" Lunamaria shouted in equal rage as she hammered the _Nelson_ with beam after beam from her Gunner Zaku. She would not show it on the radios, but she was still crying from her fatal miss of the last missile.

"Mad minute that ship!" Alicia ordered, letting go of her sword to take up her paired beam rifles. For the next sixty seconds, four Mobile Suits dumped raw firepower into the hull of the _Nelson_, until there was nothing meaningful left on the ship to shoot except a few stray chunks of armor attached to the keel. (3)

"_Thrones_ to MS forces in vicinity of _Nelson_-class _Apollo_, clear the area. I have a Lohengrin to finish the job."

"Aff, _Thrones_. Finishing blow is yours." Alicia removed her sword from the frame of the ship and exited the area at best possible speed.

-x-

(5 minutes later)

"Conn, sensors, two remaining ships, no remaining mobile forces. Where do we begin?" the Sensor Controller requested of Captain Ward.

"We do that _Drake_ next," Wayne Centara ordered from just inside the bridge doors, having just landed his Gundam to resume Fleet command. "That bastard ship put one in the side of the _Mjolnr_. Make sure they experience our displeasure firsthand."

"Aye, Star Admiral," Glennaste Ward replied. "Helm, bring us around port broadside to the enemy ship."

"Port broadside to the tangos, roger that," Willy answered from the helm station. He had to temporarily relieve himself to visit a medkit and wrap up some cuts on his face, but even with bandages and disqualifying injuries (the loss of his left eye) he would not give up this fight. "Rotating yaw two degrees a second, ten seconds to proper target profile. I love this song, bring out the mood of pure naval asswhooping so much," the Helmsman commented on the song _Wolfpack_ by Sabaton.

"Their cohorts on the moon will go to Hell hearing far worse from us in days and weeks to come, of that I swear a rede to," Star Admiral Centara said coldly. "Weapons, solutions for full broadside on the _Drake_. Aff, it is overkill, but today is a good day for overkill."

"On it, sir!" the Commander in charge of guns answered. "Solutions zeroing in...now! We have tone!"

"Fire for effect," Captain Ward ordered.

Twelve Naval Particle Cannons, twelve Class C Naval Autocannons (300mm bore), 4 Naval Laser 35s, and a myriad of teleoperated missiles were loosed into the retreating _Drake_-class ship. The PPCs landed first, stupidly easy shots at such a close range in naval terms. Two of the clusters landed on the rear of the ship and immediately sundered the engines, though the cluster that struck the back of the conning tower did the most disabling effect of all. Seconds later, the hail of naval cannon slugs began tearing into the remaining structure and armor of the ship. Such was the damage to the ship, the last four slugs passed completely through the hull of the ship without touching any material on their way through and out into dead space. The missiles were effectively an insult on top of lethal injury, but served to shred down the last of the superstructure into debris and echoes.

"Rail gun up!" Willy announced.

"Excellent! Willy, you have the last. Put that solid slug just behind amidships, in the rear fuel bunker."

"Got it, sir!" Willy brought the ship around. "Ai, give me targeting lines on the last of the last." He ratcheted his control systems down to the most finite control possible, which would be needed for such an accurate aiming task as he had been given.

"Targeting arcs are active on your primary control monitor, Helmsman," the ship's artificial intelligence entity responded.

"Tracking port, tracking port, tracking pitch, tracking pitch, on target," Willy noted. "Okay, Ai, highlight the fuel bunker, please."

"On screen."

"Finesse, finesse, firing!" He loosed the slug once the targeting arc crossed the right point on the ship, and all eyes were on the slug as it tracked out to the target.

Willy's aim was true; the slug struck the hull just above the fuel bunker. The 5-ton long-rod penetrator slugs were designed to hammer through the heavy armor of old Star-League era battlewagons and damage the innards of the ships without having to completely brute-force the armor. Such a slug was woefully overkill for a _Nelson_, which had half the structure of an old Star League ship and less than a quarter of the armor. The sudden impact in the mostly-empty fuel bunker caused a pressurization-spalling-electrical arc explosion in the vapors inside the tank, which blast tore the ship in half just behind the conning tower. The rear was ejected away from the front, and the blast above the center of gravity for the front of the ship caused it to begin a lazy reverse cartwheel as it drifted off into the black nothingness of space.

"Conn, sensors, reporting all enemy forces are slain. This one is done," the Flight Boss announced after a last check of the sensor picture.

"Put 'em on safe and reload 'em. Our war is just beginning," Wayne ordered after a moment of silence.

-x-x-x-

(5 April CE 73, 1500 Hours Lima (Eastern) Time)  
>(Earth Alliance Political Headquarters, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, North American Territories, Atlantic Federation)<p>

"Damn it, Djibril! You said this would work!" Riseman raged at the leader of LOGOS. "Now what? We just lost the entire fleet, and their next stop is definitely going to be Ptolemaeus. I hope you have a plan for salvaging this cluster-fuck, or a very deep hole to bury yourself in."

"Relax, Riseman, relax," Djibril responded soothingly. "Being perfectly honest here, I did not expect any of the fleet to survive. I will admit, I did expect a lot more damage than we inflicted, and that can complicate matters, but only temporarily. We still have control of this situation; Mendel does not have the necessary Mobile Forces to take the moon. They will try, but they can not do it."

"Man, you are so full of shit," Riseman said as he sat down behind the desk in the Oval Office. "I never realized it until now, but you are hopelessly full of shit. Unfortunately, we're now married to this cluster-fuck, and we need to figure out a way to come out on top. I want suggestions, not blow. How do we win right now?"

Djibril mastered his temper; even if Riseman was the Chairman of the Atlantic Federation, he was not above Lord Djibril. "Okay, if you want to play it completely safe, we sacrifice the moon. Move as many of our troops out to here as possible, and we do all the fighting on the planet's surface. We leave enough forces in place on the Moon bases to resist effectively, nothing more. They will take the moon, since we're not fighting hard for it, then they come for us here. They may not have the forces to take our moon bases, but they certainly shall not have enough to hit us here. "

Riseman nodded, given Djibril's comment was actually in line with common Military thinking on the matter. Mendel had, at most, a Galaxy of Marines and a short Cluster of Battle Armor troops, certainly not enough infantry to occupy a large amount of territory. Their Mobile Forces would be nigh-terrifying, especially when the full weight of the Battlemech Galaxy was unleashed, but contrary to popular fiction, armor forces (and Mobile Suits counted as armor — standing tanks) could not hold a territory against anything more than other armor. Djibril tended to put far too much faith in Mobile Suits — and even had an errant belief in the supremacy of specialist high-performance machines — two things which had singularly failed to win the day against Mendel's hardened naval defense and mixed forces.

"Okay, we give up the moon. We give them space, wholesale. Now, how do we force their hand on the ground? They themselves have admitted, all they have to do is park it above us and throw lead until we sing their national anthem in a falsetto."

Djibril winced, but said nothing immediately. He had expected some manner of hardball from Riseman, but this was pushing it. "It will take years for us to finish building up the necessary resources, but the large production of _Archangel_-class ships gives us the necessary tools to cripple their naval forces. Once their ships are downed, we can begin counterattacks to retake the moon, and once we have the all-important moon bases, we begin in on L4 again."

"Okay, decent operations concept," Riseman conceded. "Now, what about the USSA? They're spoiling for a fight."

"Mendel cannot support them if we hit first and fast. I say give them the fourth degree, and put them in their place for the second and final time. If you want, my men can go in on the ground and 'soften them up' before your regulars come in to claim territory."

"Do it, Djibril, and I want that traitor Harrelson to stand trial for his theft and assaults."

"I think I can see to that," Djibril admitted.

Two knocks at the door brought their attention to it. The entrant was the Situation Room Watch Officer. "Sir, Mendel has announced a press conference. Fifteen minutes."

-x-

(5 April CE 73, 1030 hours UTC)  
>(Office of the Star Admiral, Mendel Colony Administration Building, Mendel)<p>

The all-clear had been signalled hours ago, after repeated sweeps of the area confirmed no further hostiles were in the vicinity of Mendel. Given the Strategic Psionic was out of commission, Gerald Lightbringer had quartered the space around the colonies and confirmed by his own (limited) psionic skills that no cloaked enemies were trying for a sneak attack.

When the people returned to the streets, they had already seen the horrific images of the Mendel II colony. They already knew what was intended for them, and knew that the _Mjolnr_ had taken two missiles intended for their colony. Today, there was no pretense of peace or coexistence. Less than three hours after the battle, the clamoring for vengeance had begun.

That his people wanted it made it only that much easier for Wayne Centara to make this final, drastic move. This was the endgame the Earth Alliance begged for. This was the endgame Mendel cried for.

It was an endgame the Magi had delivered, more than once in the past.

The Cameraman gave a clear three count, then the light on the camera flicked on to signal ready. Wayne knew it was time to play the game for real this time.

"This is Star Admiral Wayne Centara, Multimage Protectorate of Mendel. I will begin this by skipping any pretense of consolation today, for there is none to be had. You cannot console families eradicated by nuclear fire. There is no relief for lovers torn apart because one was on one colony, the other was in a different colony at his day job. You cannot apologize to a million souls vaporized or spaced on the whim of a madman."

Wayne sighed, though kept it short. "As I speak, Marines are combing the wreckage of Mendel II, looking for any survivors who were caught in sealed areas. At this point, such rescue is a longshot, but every effort will be given until we have cleared all areas of the surviving wreckage. Tales of such survivors exist from the days of Junius Seven, though no rescue effort was able to free those trapped souls. Of those who did not survive, every effort will be made to rescue their deceased forms and return them for burial as is appropriate; upon that, those who are unclaimed, I have planned honors for their remains but that will necessarily need to wait."

Wayne shifted a little in chair. Doing public announcements was not his favorite thing to do, but in this case he had to make it official. "Junius Seven...that is a name famous in the Earth Sphere. It was the first notable victory the Earth Alliance had over ZAFT, but it heralded a shift in ZAFT away from simply fighting for freedom. After that fateful battle, the war changed into something else, a battle for survival. The Battle of Mendel was also a battle of survival, and much like our comrades in ZAFT we survived the nastiest the Earth Alliance has thrown at us. However, Junius Seven, Mendel Two, these incidents prove something else besides the survival of the targeted."

Wayne made no deliberate change, but in the eyes of those who watched, he seemed to harden between sentences into a frightening nightmare of a soldier. "The two listed casualties are proof to the denizens of Existence that the Earth Alliance, Blue Cosmos, and LOGOS are beyond the pale, unfit to exist and unfit to determine who around them shall exist. Their singular determination to commit genocide, omnicide, their preference for the use of weapons of mass destruction, these are not the actions of an honorable people. Their purpose is death, their methods are writ, and they will not give up until they have suborned a world to their will or depopulated it in their mad quest for racial purity."

Wayne knew now was the time to show the knife, such as it was. "Now, Blue Cosmos has turned their quest for racial purity against a Star Empire, whose creed is inclusion of all, human, partial human, or nonhuman, genetically engineered or not, without concern to belief or exclusion of those who are disdained by others. The Empire has made a long and storied history of providing haven and vocation to all who will reside in its lands and govern themselves with honor. Today, the Earth Alliance has arrogantly declared itself the sole judge, jury, and executioner of the right to live, not just in this Earth Sphere, but throughout the billions of parallel dimensions that are called the Multimage Star Empire."

With the blade shown, now Wayne drove it into the heart of the matter. "The Earth Alliance is not the first geopolitical state to make such an asinine declaration. We have faced nuclear annihilation before, and we still live to tell the tale. A world cries out for justice in these incidents; the Codici l of the Empire demands that such mass murder and infamous crime shall not go unpunished. My orders for these matters are crystal clear; the Earth Alliance, by using nuclear arms against a neutral state and specifically against civilians, has forfeited all legitimacy, all respect, and all considerations as a sovereign state. The Earth Alliance is declared dezgra, the dishonored who forfeit their lives by their infamy."

The final twist of the blade, and the pro forma declaration everyone expected: "As of 0600 UTC, the Earth Alliance is hereby subject to Trial of Annihilation for the repeated use of weapons of mass destruction on civilians. In pertaining, this means the following: all Earth Alliance forces that have not disbanded prior to contact with the Multimage Armed Forces are subject to immediate elimination by any means available. All Earth Alliance political persons, all Earth Alliance military or industrial functionaries involved in the production, transport, or deployment of weapons of mass destruction are to be executed for their involvement in an obvious infamous crime. All members of Blue Cosmos and LOGOS, for their continued perpetuation of a race war with the intention of extermination based on race, are also subject to execution. All territories of the Earth Alliance not claimed by other wronged parties shall be taken and held as Magi possessions. All parties that side with the Earth Alliance, provide martial or manpower aid, or in other ways try to shield the Earth Alliance or dezgra parties shall be treated as hostile and dealt with in the most direct fashion possible."

The final insult, with the blade on the way out of his tango: "When we are done, LOGOS and Blue Cosmos will primarily reside in Hell, and the Earth Alliance shall stand only in the history books, a grim reminder of the worst Humanity has produced throughout Existence. The lands of the Earth Alliance, stripped from its dying clutches, shall know proper honor and justice once removed from the shackles of the omnicidal tyrants that have suborned them. This is the way of the Magi when dealing with mass-murderers. There shall be no negotiation, no relent, no hesitation in our blades. This is the fate the Earth Alliance has chosen, and they have called upon the Magi to deal it unto them. To Chairman Riseman, I say: well bargained and done."

Wayne tapped a control on the surface of his desk, which killed the camera feed.

* * *

><p>((somewhat) Indeterminate time, dimension, and jump location)<p>

(Task Force Golden Roulette,_ Phalanx_-class Warship_ Golden Phoenix_)  
>(21 jumps into journey, planned 40 jumps)<p>

Rini was actually nominally late to her 'post' on the bridge after the klaxon sounded, but nobody said anything about it. She had been asleep at the time the alarm went off, and in all reality she had only operational command authority on the ship, not tactical command. Just the same, nobody was going to question the actions of their Empress, so long as nothing was actually threatened in the running of the ship.

"Conn, sensors, tango vessel identified_ Texas_-class warship, Clan refit. Visual observation suggests this is the Jade Falcon flagship, ship moniker_ Falcon's Nest_ if I remember my old Clan history correctly."

"Jumped in?" Rini asked the Star Admiral.

"Aff," Mina Sahalin replied. "Flight Control, Conn, what is the status of the Jumpship flotilla?"

"Buttoned up and ready, for what it is worth, ma'am. None of them are well enough armed to challenge a_ Texas_, so if the lead flies you can count that as a foregone conclusion."

"Roger that," Mina replied evenly.

"Conn, Comms, enemy is hailing us, Star League frequency pattern." Despite the sudden arrival of company, likely hostile company, the entire bridge crew was acting as if this was 'business as usual'. Rini found it mildly unsettling, until she remembered that the_ Phalanx_-class she was riding in was engineered specifically to sink multiple ships larger than the_ Texas_ in a stand-up naval engagement.

The main screen flickered on with a view of the enemy bridge. "This is Galaxy Commander Vandervahn Chistu of Clan Jade Falcon. I hereby claim your ships as Isorla and your personnel as Bondsmen to Clan Jade Falcon. Resist, and you will be fired upon."

Minako smiled. "Galaxy Commander Chistu, this is Star Admiral Minako Sahalin, Multimage Star Empire warship_ Golden Phoenix_. Your claim to my flotilla is summarily rejected; I am not authorized to conduct Trial of Possession for these ships or forces, but I am authorized to sink any vessels that attempt to harass or interdict my flotilla. Mind you, it is not particularly in my mission profile, but I rest assured my crew would not object to scoring an extraneous kill on a_ Texas_-class ship."

"Conn, Sensors, Tango vessel is now within range of all port-aft naval weapons."

"Sensors, Conn, aye," Mina replied immediately. "Firing solutions, full safeties until I say otherwise."

"Conn, weps, aye."

"Vandervahn, listen well," Mina told the screen and by extension the enemy force commander. "We are a force that is simply passing through this sector of space. We have nothing for the Clans or against the Clans. We are not part of the Inner Sphere and have no contact with them. When next our ships jump, there will be no possibility of contact with either the Clans or the Inner Sphere forevermore. If you seek to do battle, Galaxy Commander, you will not survive the engagement, but more to the point you will be damning the Jade Falcon participation in Operation Revival to failure."

More than a few of the crew on the ship in question bolted out of their seats at Mina's words, though this resulted in somewhat confused floating on their parts. Without continual thrust, the_ Texas_-class lacked artificial gravity of any kind on the bridge. "Explain this insult at once!" one of the subordinate officers on the bridge angrily shouted.

"Operation Revival is the Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere; we know this because we Magi have been subject to said operation and subjected the dishonored few to it just the same. Each of the four Clans involved, Jade Falcon, Wolf, Ghost Bear and Smoke Jaguar, operates with a handful of carefully-balanced forces; the loss of a Galaxy of those forces would necessarily cripple said Clan's invasion plan. It would not behoove you to lose your forces under such a scenario, yes?"

"You threaten my entire force? What—"

"Damn straight I threaten your entire force, Galaxy Commander," Mina cut him off very abruptly. "You threaten to fire upon civilian ships, I will threaten to annihilate a single Warship. When you get down to it, neither of us should have a challenge executing those threats."

"Conn, Jump Control, Solar Sail is ejecting now."

"Conn, Sensors, six connections cleared on port, six connections cleared to starboard. Confirm we are clear of the sail."

"Sensors, aye, Jump Control, aye," Star Admiral Sahalin noted. "What shall it be, Galaxy Commander?"

"We will settle this on the battlefield," Chistu replied. The screen cut out after a moment.

"Fire Control, put Screen Canisters between the enemy_ Texas_ and our civ Jumpships. Helm, turn broadside to the enemy ship, weps prepare to fire all capital arms."

"Enemy confirmed inside range bracket for NAC/30 weapons fire," the Weapons Fire Controller declared.

"Conn, sensors, enemy ships solid lock, he's ready to fire on us. Wait—energy spike, enemy is firing!"

"Sound collision," Mina ordered as the enemy ship fired upon the_ Golden Phoenix_ properly. Two seconds later, the sound of slugs impacting on the hull of the ship echoed through the bridge. "Damage?"

"_Phalanx_ paint-scratches," the Maintenance Controller replied, meaning the shells caused no more damage than replacing the outer plate layer.

"Fire Control, reach out and touch him. Particle cannons, lasers, and capital missiles only; we will need our ballistic reserves for suborbital fire."

"Gunner Control, release particle cannons, lasers, capital missiles. Reach out and touch him," the Fire Control Officer ordered.

As the enemy continued to rotate in approach to the_ Golden Phoenix_, his second NAC/40 cannon came into target profile and loosed its volley. This one did not strike the ship or any of the support vessels, to which Star Admiral Sahalin was grateful for their inaccuracy. Her gunners did not suffer the same failure, however, as the particle cannons and missiles discharged with haunting echoes throughout the ship. Particularly egregious were the Kraken teleoperated capital missiles, which when discharged from the port rear silos still managed to cause the ship to rumble.

"This is a bit one-sided," Empress Atrebas commented dryly. "Did they not realize our ship is four times larger than a_ Texas_?"

"Clan arrogance. You expected else, ma'am?" the Flight boss asked nonchalantly. As a general rule, when a_ Phalanx_-class ship was in combat, most of the rank apropos went out the airlock. Even the Empress was treated as 'part of the crew' in such a circumstance, and she expected it.

"Guess not, not really," Rini replied just as nonchalantly.

"This should be a no-brainer," Minako said. "Any of the eight sectors of our ship, when measured against their whole ship overall, has more armor. We could fight a dozen of these ships in pairs or trios and expect a victory," to which Magi doctrine specifically catered to that necessity. The Negaverse in particular loved smaller Warships, and a lot of small ships could bring down one larger ship if used right, but if engaged in a run-and-gun battle the larger ship ran the greater chance of winning. "Come on, Chistu, cry uncle before I have to kill your ship completely," Minako said wholeheartedly.

The_ Falcon's Nest_ answered the bark of Naval Particle Cannons with its own, the blaze of Naval lasers with its own, though the flight of Capital missiles was answered by naval autocannon. Still, much as Minako had surmised the battle was one-sided. A Dropship was sheared from the docking collar on the Clan warship, sundered loose by errant particle cannons from the_ Golden Phoenix_ and sent adrift. A detonation in the fore-starboard weapons bays of the enemy ship preceded the inevitable.

"Conn, Comms, enemy ship is requesting cease-fire," the radio officer said with his hands to the headphones to help focus on the words instead of the flying ordinance.

"Main screen," Minako ordered.

"Put out these fires!" Vandervahn Chistu was looking off-screen at something, but was quick to turn to the monitor when it came on. "Star Admiral, you have made your point. I request safcon to depart the area; we Falcons will never again challenge the Multimages."

"Your request is denied," Star Admiral Sahalin replied immediately. "You chose to settle this on the battlefield, and combat has become thy judge. I hereby claim your ships, personnel and carried assets as isorla in the name of the Magi; this fate you have chosen, this fate you will serve."

-x-

For Galaxy Commander Chistu, the walk down the length of the_ Golden Phoenix_ from where he had been brought on-board to the bridge was tenuous. The defeat was made all the more damning as it was obvious this was not an Earth ship. Or any Inner Sphere ship, for that matter. The architecture was still Human through and through, and easily recognizable for someone who spent a significant portion of his career on similar ships, but the sheer enormity of the ship itself was beyond anything Chistu could have ever imagined.

The Galaxy Commander and his immediate subordinate, Star Colonel Nikolai Malthus, were the two officers 'volunteered' to discuss their new fate with the Star Admiral. The sheer shock of the presence and overt threat of the Armored Marines had faded in a kilometer's march down the central corridor, though other datum points about the inside of the monolithic Warship were still just as frightening as when they first learned them.

The four-kilometer march to the bridge of the_ Golden Phoenix_ had held many wonders, just the same. It was inevitable that the ship's crew would not all be strictly human, given the Empire was only slightly more than half human, and Chistu was no dumbass in any measure of the word. This led to the inevitable question for their escort officer, Star Colonel Adrian McKenna. "I keep seeing beings that look close to human, but..." he trailed the question, not sure how to go about phrasing it in such a fashion as to not get shot. They acted somewhat like the Clans, but just enough off that he wasn't yet sure how to conduct himself in their presence.

"You eyes play no illusions, Galaxy Commander," the Magi Star Colonel replied. "The Star Admiral will likely explain it further, and you will have plenty of time to read the relevant histories, but suffice it to say for now that the Multimage Star Empire is only about 65 percent human."

"And the other groups?" Star Colonel Malthus asked adroitly.

"They are a bit underrepresented here," Adrian admitted. "Humans have something of a psychological predilection for doing what the other races consider wildly insane things, such as conducting warfare in the inhospitable vacuum of space. The ones that you've no doubt twigged to, the ones with the longer-than-average pointed ears, those are the really 'wild and crazy' minority of Elves and half-Elves," Adrian indicated one such being, wearing the uniform of a Technician and the rank insignia of a Chief Warrant Officer. Said technician simply waved a wrench in acknowledgment, his other hand working on pulling a new bundle of electrical conduit through a wiring access. "Elves are more commonly seen in the Infantry forces, where they are more at ease on solid ground and with infantry weapons to do their duties. This is just one example among many, Galaxy Commander, Star Colonel."

"That would be the bridge?" Chistu asked as four more Marines became discernible at what appeared to be the end of the corridor. He didn't want to dwell on something that all of human history had declared was patently impossible.

"It is," the Star Colonel replied. "We're about a kilometer off, still. Any outstanding questions?"

Nikolai looked back over his shoulder, then forward again, then back. Beyond the Marines escorting him, he could see what seemed rather frightening. "This corridor is not straight, is it?"

"Creepy feeling, no?" the Star Colonel asked in counter. "The only time the ship is expected to be 100 percent parallel is right out of the shipyard. Over the decades, they will flex slightly but they do spring back to reasonably close to straight. Each ship has a series of eight pulse engines specifically designed to keep the ship from shearing itself apart during heavy maneuvering, and also help in programmed maneuvers. At maximum safe deflection, you cannot see more than two kilometers down this corridor. Also helps prevent Armor Snipers from having a clear shot down the length of the hall, in case the ship is stormed by someone who has such a weapon."

A Cushman miniature cargo mover exited one bay with a skid full of parts, turned down the corridor, and moved 100 meters toward the bridge before it entered a bay on the other side of the ship. Nikolai grimaced at how even the Marines moved out of the way, but said nothing. Whoever these Magi were, they knew and practiced some of the Clan tenets, but not all.

-x-

The blast doors to the bridge opened speedily, with the semi-mechanical flex of Myomer actuators doing the dirty work to move the heavy slabs. Nikolai and Chistu were both greeted by a scene of semi-chaos, all the more so that the bridge crew for this ship exceeded the crew of some smaller vessels in its entirety. Despite the near-bedlam in the bridge, one thing stood out to Chistu as soon as he entered: this was an old hand crew, one that knew their job and knew it well. "Maint Control from Sierra-41, what do we do with the Naval AC/40 ammunition?"

"Rig it for demo, Sierra-41. We have no NAC-40 assets in the fleet. Come to think of it, I don't think the Magi have any ships with NAC/40s," the Maintenance Controller commented after a moment.

"Close, MxCtrl, the_ Claymore_-class gun station has a pair of NAC/40 in separate Sponsons (X) in each gun arc," Captain Hallis corrected her. "Though, if you get that close to a_ Claymore_ battle-station and you're still alive, you're doing damn good and should retire while your luck holds."

"Not a ship, Cap'n," the Maintenance Controller replied to defend her statement.

The Captain made a show of considering it. "Okay, you win, Controller. No_ Ships_ use the '40s, natch," he answered. "Galaxy Commander Chistu, Star Colonel Malthus, over here," he waved the two Jade Falcons over to the conning platform. "My apologies for the long march, but right now salvaging your ships takes priority. We have a tight operations schedule to maintain, and your interference in that is causing a scramble for salvage. On the other hand," the Captain looked both of them over thoroughly; "I think we can determine a good use for some stray Falcons that wandered into the wrong roost."

"Interesting," Nikolai said blandly. "And why should we show deference to someone who refuses batchall?"

"Grab a seat, gentlemen, it would appear that you need a little bit of a briefing," the Captain said. Within moments, both the Galaxy Commander and the Star Colonel were seated in the Conn platform. "What the Star Admiral told you, that we are not allowed to offer nor entertain batchall for this flotilla, that was no joke," the Captain said deadpan. "Our force structure is specifically engineered for our mission, to a finer level of detail than your Operation Revival force. Were this a chance encounter, I know Star Admiral Sahalin would have readily accepted your challenge, and likely would have faced off against you in one-on-one combat, Galaxy Commander."

"What is so important that you must refuse batchall?" That point was confusing Galaxy Commander Chistu to no end.

"We go to invade Terra, Galaxy Commander," the Captain replied. "It is not the same Terra that you intended on capturing, since our travels are interdimensional as well as interstellar, but we will be invading Terra."

"You go to forge yourselves as the ilClan of your Clan structure?" the Galaxy Commander asked, thinking they were not yet the ilClan of a different bunch of Clans. He had no real problem understanding they were cross-dimensional travelers, Star Colonel McKenna had already explained that at length.

"No, Galaxy Commander. We are the ilClan Nova Cats, absorbed by the Multimages many millennia ago," Star Admiral Sahalin said as she mounted the platform and took her customary seat. "We hold thousands of planets Terra in a sea of far more parallel dimensions. Today, we go to absorb another entity that needs to be rectified unto the light of true honor and duty. Your force, your Galaxy, is now part of that effort," she completed the thought.

"And what happens to our Clan?" Nikolai asked.

"Master Executor?" the Star Admiral deferred the question to Hotaru, who was busy looking out the front window of the bridge into the black nothingness of space.

Hotaru never looked to the Galaxy Commander or the Star Colonel. "In thirty thousand years, your descendants will return to this land to absorb the Clans here, and induct them into the blossoming efforts of your soon-to-be homeland. Your efforts thus far shall not go to waste, for your descendants will repurpose the Clans to the task at hand."

"And that task is?" Chistu asked plainly.

"Prevention of the annihilation of all beings in Existence, human or nonhuman." Hotaru paused to allow that thought to sink in.

"Is that...what?" Vandervahn asked after a few moments of silence, thoroughly confused by her answer.

"Oh yes, Galaxy Commander Chistu. The Warden Clans were right. The Inner Sphere needs to be protected from things far worse than itself. The entirety of Existence must be protected from things far worse than the bickering successor states. Shortly, you shall understand the reasons for this."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Chapter Afterword<strong>:

If ever a case of someone pissing in their own gene pool, this is it.

The major point here is the fact that Riseman has realized he was played hard by Djibril. For that matter, one could make the leap of consideration that the entire Earth Alliance was played by LOGOS and Blue Cosmos, but when one does the calculus of the matter it becomes apparent this is an affair of unholy matrimony between the three parties. More to the point, Riseman knows he is now married to this nightmare, and things are only going to get worse before they get better...if at all.

On the military front, the major thing to keep in mind here is that Mendel took a major beating by the numbers, but only two of Mendel's Warships are out of commission and the necessity of Mobile Armors in further engagements is low. Mobile Suits are only part of the combined force to be used in further engagements; Mendel has a Galaxy of Battlemechs, which is more than ample firepower to make up for MS losses. And, the Marines or the Battle Armor Infantry will skew the odds for Mendel on the moon.

The major question becomes, how soon will the _Golden Phoenix_ (Task Force Golden Roulette) arrive to even the odds against the Earth Alliance? And, where does ZAFT fit into this? Will they directly challenge the Earth Alliance, or will they simply support Mendel as you saw here?

This is the turning point, where things start really becoming history-changing for everyone involved. Fates will be written, and fates will end abruptly.

**NEXT UP**: The Moon becomes Mendel's next target, while the (smart) Earth Alliance forces try to make a run for Earth. Who will survive?

* * *

><p><strong>Review Replies<strong>: NINE reviews for a Jokers Wild Chapter? I am honored to receive that much feedback! Thank you all!

Dtiapula: Sorry for the cliffhanger, but sometimes you have to call the chapter end in a hard location :)

Drakensis: Thank you for the correction!

Obfuscated: Thank you for the correction. I have no real idea why I thought that was Swedish. Though, your comment extension brings to light a required discussion. The Magi are 'historical archivists' in a sense: they have their own history, but they also see and record other histories that they are not involved in or only tangentially involved. The mention of Simo Hayha is one such case: he did not gain major notoriety in the old Magi history, but he has a helluva rep amongst other histories that the Magi have recorded.

FraserMage: The 'park and shoot' idea is not a bad idea. Thanks!

Sieben Nightwing: Down, amigo! Down! No spoilers!

Hope you enjoyed this one as much as it was a wench to write :)

Nagato 21: They aren't here yet, but they will be. They will be. Thank you for the first review and welcome to the party!

One-Village-Idiot: The Scandinavians will get their plug in chapters to come. They were not shown here because they were in a bomb shelter in Mendel, but that will change.

The Quin Mantha is roughly 8 months production cycle per machine, dependent on the availability of engines for them.

Mirage Colloid will make a serious showing in Set 3. The Magi have it right now, but they aren't really in a position to use it.

The latest the Magi have UC-era machines is Char's Counterattack.

Neo-GENESIS was scrapped by Durandal as soon as he realized he had a way out of the clutches of BC without having to beat them senseless. Requiem is still in production, but the Earth Alliance has changed their construction policies and made it far harder to be sensed by Calamira or the Trio.

FireMiner: Aye, that is a sick thought, but keep in mind that the dice may not determine they split.

Hellhound DOW: I think I like your ideas. They may have to show up at a later point.

* * *

><p><strong>The Gripe Sheet<strong>:

One major logic fault has been corrected. Much thanks to Drakensis and Obfuscated for the error correction, and as always thanks to my beta readers **Necroblade**, **Takeshi Yamato** and **Sieben Nightwing** for the debugging before my posts!

* * *

><p><strong>Footnotes<strong>:

(1): The missiles referred to in this section are actually Battletech Thunderbolt 20 missiles, single large hunks of ordinance with a rocket engine on it for good measure. In quantity, they can be deadly to even the largest aerofighter.

(2): **Fleet Ex**ercise.

(3): **Mad Minute** is an old British term referring to a British Infantryman's ability to take a Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifle and fire more than 20 aimed shots in 60 seconds, including reloads (the Lee Enfield had a semi-removable 10-round magazine).

(X):** Sponsons** is shorthand for Sponson Turrets, which are a type of gun assembly used on early naval battleships (WW1 and WW2 ships) back when guns were the primary forms of offense. These turrets also made a brief showing on Tanks, as the British Mark IV used 5-lb guns mounted in Sponsons on the sides. Yes, those short-barrel guns in the weird cylindrical mounts on the sides are cut-down naval cannons in a native turret assembly built into a tank. And the inspiration for Battletech tanks that use Sponson turrets, of which I have designed multiple.

* * *

><p><strong>TABLE OF ORGANIZATION AND EQUIPMENT<strong>: Task Force Jokers Wild (As of the end of this chapter)

0. Task Force Jokers Wild: Star Admiral Wayne Centara  
>— Strategic Officer Calamira Weste<br>— Strategic Officer (Candidate) Ashe  
>— Strategic Officer (Candidate) Sapphite<br>— Strategic Officer (Candidate) Leon

1. Warship Mjolnr — Captain Glennaste Ward II  
>— <em>Sendai<em>-class Escort Monitor _Hyperion_ (Star Commodore Jim Tilgeis)  
>— <em>Sendai<em>-class Escort Monitor _Redland_ (Star Commodore Jin Kojima)  
>— <em>Flame Eater<em>-class Escort Monitor _Absinthe_ (Captain Anastus "Spazz" Holmes)  
>— <em>Flame Eater<em>-class Escort Monitor _Byzantine_ (Monitor Destroyed, unserviceable) (Captain Kyril (Bloodhouse McKenna), KIA)  
>— <em>Riga<em>-class Escort Monitor _Montgomery_ (Monitor Destroyed; salvageable) (Captain Anita Rose Yoojute, KIA)  
>— <em>Riga<em>-class Escort Monitor _Vladivostok_ (Captain Hale Voss)  
>— <em>Archangel<em>-class Assault Monitor _Dominion_ (Captain Soritz Jamestown)  
>— <em>Archangel<em>-class Assault Monitor _Thrones_ (Captain James Freeman)  
>— <em>Girty Lue<em>-class Stealth Assault Monitor _Girty Lue_ (Not commissioned)

2. Dropships — Merchant Tradesman Jakob  
>— <em>Guild<em>-class General Purpose Dropship (Civilian Cargo Variant) (15, 4 Destroyed in combat and at Mendel II)  
>— <em>Guild<em>-class General Purpose Dropship (Armed Cargo Variant) (10)  
>— <em>Guild<em>-class General Purpose Dropship (Battlemech Variant) (1)  
>— <em>Guild<em>-class General Purpose Dropship (Aerofighter Variant) (2 surviving, 1 Destroyed at Mendel II)

3. Mobile Armors — Century Commander Gerald Lightbringer  
>— Dendrobium Mobile Armor: 43, 38 Damaged (below function)<br>— Neue Ziel Mobile Armor (Upgrade Block I): 17, 14 Damaged (Below Function)  
>— Elmeth Mobile Armor: 8, 7 Damaged (below function)<br>— Braw Bro Mobile Armor: 0 Surviving units  
>— Big Zam Mobile Armor: 2, 1 Damaged (below function)<br>— Bigro Mobile Armor: 4, all damaged below function  
>— Zeong Mobile Weapon: 2, 1 damaged (below function)<br>— Val Varo Mobile Armor: 2, all damaged below function

4. Aerofighters — Galaxy Commander Rico  
>— Fireball Omnifighter: 185, 65 damaged (below function)<br>— Thunderball Omnifighter: 1, damaged below function  
>— Skygrasper IIM Aerofighter: 1, Damaged (still functional)<br>— Assorted Omnigfighters (Heavy: 70 to 100 tons): 20, 14 damaged (below function)  
>— Assorted Omnigfighters (Medium: 40 to 65 tons): 25, 21 damaged (below function)<br>— Assorted Omnigfighters (Light: 20 to 35 tons): 25, 14 damaged (below function), 2 damaged (functional)

5. Mobile Forces — (Gerald Lightbringer)  
>— Mobile Suits: 98, 66 damaged (below function), 12 (still functional)<br>— Gundams: 85, 45 damaged (below function), 22 (still functional)

6. Ground Forces — Galaxy Commander Wade Malthus  
>— Battlemechs  Omnimechs: 1 Cluster (70), undamaged  
>— Battlemechs  Omnimechs: 1 Cluster (75), undamaged  
>— Battlemechs  Omnimechs: 1 Cluster (65), undamaged  
>— Battlemechs  Omnimechs: 1 Cluster (70), undamaged  
>— Battlemechs  Omnimechs: 1 Cluster (75), undamaged

7. Marines (Reinforced Galaxy) — Galaxy Commander Carlos Michaels  
>— Armored Marines: 1 Cluster (375)<br>— Armored Marines: 1 Cluster (360)  
>— Armored Marines: 1 Cluster (300)<br>— Armored Marines: 1 Cluster (350)  
>— Armored Marines: 1 Cluster (375)<br>— Armored Marines: 1 Cluster (350)  
>— Armored Marines: 1 Cluster (260)<br>— Battle Armor: 1 Cluster (330)


	9. Silent Hunters

(Flight Of The Jokers Wild, Chapter 9: Silent Hunters)

(6 April CE 73, 1200 Hours UTC)  
>(Mendel Colony, Commercial Block 3, Sniper Bar and Grill)<p>

"Holy shit, the dumb sunzabitch is still alive!" the titular Sniper and proprietor of the Bar and Grill half-shouted when he realized who had entered the door.

"Oh yes, I am alive, my foes are dead, and the specters of my past are haunting the hell out of me," Century Commander Gerald Lightbringer noted with a soured tone like no other. "Let us talk, barkeep, for I have six hours on shore and I intend to get shit-faced to drown those noisy ghosts from my past."

"I hear you," the bartender answered coldly. "Where do you want to start? Tequila, vodka, or rum?"

"Start me with a Davion PPC, the whiskey variant," Gerald ordered.

"You got it," the barkeep/former Armor Sniper answered immediately. Four shots of grain alcohol, two shots of whiskey, mixed well, and the glass was set down in front of the Century Commander. "All right, you old bastard. Talk to me."

Gerald took a half-slam of the glass, leaving roughly two shots of everclear and one of whiskey for when he hit the drink next. "Not much to say, really. The _Dominion_ and forces were caught out of position to make any bit of difference in the final volley. They slipped the missiles past us, we did the first wave of launches which were mostly torpedoes and not the nukes."

"Same way the fuckwads always do it," the sniper agreed. "What was their decoy ratio? 5-to-1? 6-to-1?" By which he was asking how many torpedoes were mixed in with the nuclear missiles.

"4-to-1 at the last volley. They went straight-board nukes on the first and second waves, or at least they used their torpedoes as actual torpedoes in the first run, not as pretend-cruise-missiles."

"Damn, absent comrades," the bartender hoisted a beer to salute Gerald's PPC.

"Aye, absent comrades, always the absent comrades, and we had a lot not come home yesterday," Gerald said morosely before he finished his first PPC off. "Double me up, barkeep," the veteran Gundam pilot requested.

"On it," the Sniper answered.

"I've spent some time behind the trigger, but my preference is the machine," Gerald commented unbidden. "A sniper can influence the battlefield, but a Gundam can influence several battlefields simultaneously if used right. That is why I turned to the machine, and brought around me the best of the best pilots with the machines."

"The Angel Team, commanded by the Archangel of Solace," the Sniper noted before he sat down the filled rocks glass. "Will you rebuild the team?"

"I...don't know," Gerald replied. "I don't know."

The Bartender looked up from his beer to a trio of new entrants. "ZAFT pilots? _Comen_," he waved them over to the central bar, specifically to seats next to Gerald. "Drink or meal, name it," he said after the three pilots took seats.

"Huh?" the center of the three ZAFT pilots asked. Gerald had no problem recognizing the voice, Shinn Asuka.

"Wartime rules, pilots. We are all soldiers, and the battlefield does not recognize age, so neither shall the Magi."

"Non-alcoholic, please, and a pub burger," Rey Za Burrel noted. He was seated the farthest from Gerald, though he was not making it look deliberate that he was avoiding the Century Commander.

"Light beer draft, chicken tenders basket," Shinn Asuka requested. A waiter dutifully recorded the request on a memo pad, given the bartender was 'out of service' while speaking with Gerald.

"Chicken Fiesta salad," Lunamaria requested. "And, what is he drinking?" she indicated the rocks glass in front of the Century Commander seated next to her.

"Him? Davion PPC, right now," the bartender answered candidly. "I expect he'll go through the entire PPC line before his shore leave is up, and come dangerously close to alcohol poisoning."

"That is my intention," Gerald confirmed before he slammed the rest of his Davion PPC. "By my math, I still have Steiner, Kurita, Marik, Liao, Capellan, ComStar, Blake, Periphery, Magi, Negaverse, Dark Moon, and New Moon PPCs to do, and I am not even doing a tour of the Clan PPCs. I will be here a while," Gerald rattled off. "Barkeep, start her with a Light PPC, say, Negaverse Light PPC, if you're going to do that. Mellow flavor, not as much of a rough first shot."

"Okay, what's the difference?" Lunamaria asked.

"Two shots of everclear, rather than four, for the Light PPC," the Bartender answered for Gerald. "A PPC is a base drink of four shots everclear, then cut with a 'house special'. Davion cuts it with two shots whiskey. Steiner cuts it with two shots Peppermint Schnapps, as an example. A Negaverse PPC is base drink, one shot of Grenadine, one shot grape wine, and two shots grape pucker. If you feel like doing the Negaverse First Army PPC, we use a dark aged merlot and add a drop of red coloring to make it a blood PPC."

"Is that really the easiest?" Lunamaria asked after a moment.

"You have a significant ghost to quell," Gerald gauged after thinking about why she asked. "Barkeep, do the light Negaverse PPC for her. I'll pay for all three of their drinks and meals. Now, what the Sniper said is accurate: we are all soldiers, and a soldier knows how to listen to another soldier. Speak to us of what ails you, and expatriate that Ghost."

Luna looked down to the bar surface, and said nothing for a few seconds. Before she could fortify herself to speak, the requested drink landed in front of her. "No shame in the Ghosts, young one," the Sniper said. "We all have our fair share of haunting memories. Take your time, speak if you are able, and we shall listen."

Luna nodded twice, picked up her glass, and downed half of it in one shot. It was surprisingly sweet for what she was expecting, probably due to the grenadine and grape pucker, but she could definitely tell by the throat burn that it was high power. The Magi she had trained with commented that the Particle Projection Cannon was one of the most feared Battlemech and aerospace energy weapons available, thus Luna figured a drink that shared such a name would hit just as hard as its armaments counterpart.

Again she took a moment, though it was not a long one. "I... missed a missile during the battle," she admitted. "I mean, I did hit it, I sheared the engine off the missile body, but the missile still made it to the target."

"Put a crater in one of the ships?" Gerald snorted. "Do not concern over it, Lunamaria. Just another panel or two of armor to replace. Our systechs are busy seeing to that right now, likely."

"No, it wasn't just a regular missile," Luna admitted quietly. "It was the missile that hit Mendel II. I came so close to stopping it, but I missed!"

Gerald was silent for a moment, then looked to the Sniper. "Barkeep, make her next one a full-strength Negaverse PPC. That is a rather loud ghost to be listening to."

"I just... can't forget it," Luna admitted. "Every time I close my eyes, I see the bodies drifting in space, debris, cars, even a box of breakfast cereal that came close enough for me to read the nutrition information off the side panel. A million dead, because I missed a crucial shot."

"Do you blame yourself?" Gerald asked quietly after he finished the last of his drink. "Steiner, this time," he requested as he handed the glass back to the barkeep.

"Yes, I missed the shot!" Luna half-wailed.

"What about the weapons officer that fired the missile, knowing full well he was targeting civilians?" Gerald asked after a moment of silence at their end of the bar.

"They were just following orders," Luna noted.

"No, he was not," Gerald answered coldly. "The Nuremberg Trials of 1940s Terra permanently eliminated 'just following orders' from the equation. Every soldier in Existence is expected to do the moral thing, Luna, and that includes the Earth Alliance. You blame yourself for being unable to counter his action. I blame the weapons officer for forcing you into a position where you had to counter an immoral and dishonorable action. Am I not right, Star Admiral?" Gerald asked a newcomer that he had not even bothered to look at, but who sat down to Gerald's left.

"Aff, you are correct," Wayne Centara, Star Admiral, answered the standing question. "I wanted to give you this, Lunamaria Hawke, before your ship departed," he passed an envelope across the bar to her.

"What is this?"

"Cherry Pucker jello shooters, please, and a plate of brass cases," Wayne requested of the active waiter at the bar. "Therein stands four letters, Luna. One is addressed to Chairman Durandal, who shall be here tomorrow to speak with the crew of the _Minerva_. One is addressed to the Crew of the _Minerva_ as a whole. One is addressed to Captain Gladys. The last one is for you."

"Me? Sir?" she asked after she received her new drink.

"Aff, you," Wayne echoed. "A world has stood by silently, watching as madmen drive it again into war and try to exterminate those who want to live in peace. In the final moment of darkness, a red light stood and shone brightly; though the red light could not squelch the darkness, that it dared to try made it the brightest light of that hour." Wayne chuckled dryly. "That is how it shall be written in the Remembrance of this incident."

"But...I missed...why?" Luna asked finally.

"You did not fail," Wayne answered after a moment. "The first and loudest failure is of a world unwilling to stand against the monsters in their midst. The second failure is the Earth Alliance officers who believed themselves justified in firing on civilians with nuclear arms. You, comparatively, were trying to correct those massive mistakes of others. No reasonable soldier can expect you alone to flawlessly sort these problems out. You did what you could, and that was more than enough. If you want to continue the course of correcting this problem, I am willing to entertain requests."

Luna hit half of her full-strength Negaverse PPC while she considered the request. "When I deliver this letter to the Chairman, I will ask," she decided.

-x-x-x-

(6 April CE 73, 1330 Hours UTC)  
>(North Atlantic, Scandinavia hunter-killer submarine staging area 2)<p>

"Helm, come left 30 degrees, maintain speed and depth," Captain Luties ordered.

"Left thirty degrees, aye sir," the Helmswoman answered immediately.

"Conn, Sonar, boomer Typhoon One is holding course clean, tooling along at fifteen knots. She's loud and noisy at this range, you could probably hear her with a shotglass to the torpedo tubes up front."

"Sonar, Conn, aye," Maxwell Luties acknowledged.

"Conn, Radio Room, SSIX transmission has been decoded. Printout is on the way." Scandinavia and Mendel had worked out a significant relationship over the years since the arrival of the Mages, and one of their Dropships had been kind enough to put out a laser-communication satellite for the Scandinavians while they were collecting debris. **S**ubmarine **S**atell**I**te data e**X**change, a near-carbon-copy of an old United States laser communication technology, corrected a lot of the problems with ELF data communication and Neutron Jammers. All that was needed was a 'routine traffic' timetable for each sub and the whole ELF radio communications system was gone.

"Here it is, sir," the junior radio operator noted. The Captain unfolded the dispatch and began reading.

XXX — BEGIN MESSAGE — XXX

SUBMARINE SATELLITE INFORMATION EXCHANGE TRAFFIC  
>LASER TRANSMISSION BIDIRECTIONAL  CONFIRMED GOOD COPY  
>FLASH TRAFFIC PRIORITY<br>FOR: SS-1231 / SUBMARINE LONGBOAT  
>FROM: CHIEF NAVAL OFFICER, SCANDINAVIAN ROYAL NAVY<br>LOC: NORTHLANT PATROL

OPORDER RELEASE / MISSION SILENT HUNTER

SUBMARINE LONGBOW IS NOW RELEASED TO BEGIN COUNTER-NAVAL OPERATIONS AGAINST EARTH ALLIANCE SHIPS AND FACILITIES AT THE DISCRETION OF THE SUB COMMANDERS.

AT APPROXIMATELY 0700Z, THE EARTH ALLIANCE STRUCK AND DESTROYED COLONY MENDEL II WITH A NUCLEAR WEAPON. FINAL CASUALTY FIGURES HAVE NOT BEEN RELEASED, BUT EXPECTATION FROM MENDEL IS UPWARDS OF 1.6 MILLION CIVILIANS. IN RESPONSE, THE MULTIMAGE PROTECTORATE OF MENDEL HAS DECLARED A TRIAL OF ANNIHILATION AGAINST THE EARTH ALLIANCE AND ITS MEMBER STATES OR ANY PARTIES THAT AID OR ABET THEM. IT IS THE OPINION OF SCANDINAVIAN OPERATIONS PERSONNEL THAT MENDEL WILL BEGIN THEIR CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE LUNAR FORCES OF THE EARTH ALLIANCE WITHIN THE NEXT 96 HOURS.

IT IS DETERMINED BY NATIONAL COMMAND AUTHORITY THAT THE EARTH ALLIANCE STATES OF EURASIA AND ATLANTIC FEDERATION HAVE GONE OMNICIDAL AND CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO NOT USE THEIR EXTANT NUCLEAR ARSENALS ON ANY OTHER PARTIES.

IF THEY ARE WILLING TO FIRE ON CIVILIAN COLONIES IN SPACE AGAINST A FORCE THAT IS A MAJOR MILITARY THREAT, IT IS NOT OUTSIDE OF THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY THEY WILL USE LAND-BASED OR SEA-BASED SYSTEMS ON AN OTHERWISE NON-THREATENING BUT NONCOMPLIANT PARTY. AS SUCH, ALL AVAILABLE SCANDINAVIAN ASSETS ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO TAKE ALL MEASURES NECESSARY TO CRIPPLE OR NEUTRALIZE EARTH ALLIANCE NUCLEAR ASSETS.

ADDITIONALLY, AT SUCH A TIME AS MENDEL FORCES BEGIN A GROUND CAMPAIGN, THE SCANDINAVIAN FORCES ARE RELEASED AT DISCRETION TO AID AND ABET ANY AND ALL INVASION FORCES IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE. IN THE EVENT THAT SCANDINAVIA IS INVADED BY EARTH ALLIANCE FORCES, ALL SCANDINAVIAN NAVAL ASSETS ARE TO GO INTO EXILE BY WAY OF ANY NEUTRAL OR FRIENDLY NATION AND ATTEMPT TO SUPPORT ANY EFFORTS TO RETAKE SCANDINAVIA OR DESTROY THE EARTH ALLIANCE IN ITS ENTIRETY.

THIS IS AN EFFECTIVE STANCE OF UNDECLARED WAR AGAINST THE EARTH ALLIANCE.

GODSPEED TO OUR SILENT HUNTERS.

XXX — END MESSAGE 1330Z — XXX

Captain Maxwell Luties read the message once, twice, then whistled. Apparently, the King decided that this shit was now beyond the point of no redemption.

"That bad, sir?" the XO asked after watching the captain read the message.

"Bad enough," the Captain responded. "Chief of the watch, bring us to battle stations for submarine action."

"BATTLE STATIONS!" the chief shouted loud enough to be heard throughout most of the hull. The klaxon was merely reinforcement for those in earshot to the Chief.

"Read this, you'll like it," Maxwell handed the SSIX message to his XO while his other arm reached for the growler microphone. He set the intercom system to 1MC to make sure his crew knew what the King had just asked of them.

"Oh, I like this, all right," the XO responded.

Captain Luties smiled in response. "Attention all hands, this is the Captain speaking. As of 0700 Zulu time yesterday, the Earth Alliance has struck the first blow in the second Earth-Space fracas. The colony Mendel II was destroyed by nuclear weapon, with expected casualties of 1.6 million persons on that station. In response, Mendel has declared a Trial of Annihilation against the EA forces and any allied parties. Though most of the Terran states have not yet caught up to this reality, this planet is now effectively at a state of global war, and the battle lines are the Earth Alliance versus the rest."

There was a murmur among the crew, but the Helmswoman brought the fears of the crew to the forward with a single question: "Sir, if they're firing nukes at Mendel, who can literally depopulate this planet from space, what does that mean for us? Or Orb? Or the USSA?" she asked sincerely frightened of the possibility, which also was picked up by the microphone and heard around the ship.

"National Command Authority had the same question, and the answer is not to his liking. The Earth Alliance hit Mendel with a nuke, and Mendel definitely has the capability to depopulate the Atlantic Federation. If they are willing to use nukes against complete hardasses like the Multimages, they won't shy away from using them against us as a bargaining chip or a persuader to ensure we are out of the war or are stringers for the EA. Thus, the King has ordered us to sink as a priority every Earth Alliance nuclear-capable asset on or under the waves. I have every intention of following these orders to their full extent. We are now at a state of undeclared war with the Earth Alliance, as they have gone beyond rogue; they are now considered omnicidal, in that they have the capability to kill everyone on planet and we cannot confirm their leadership is rational enough not to push the button."

Captain Luties looked around the control room, and saw the same thing he expected was being seen in other control rooms in the Scandinavian fleets. His men were scared, but not for themselves. Each man and woman in his control room had family at home, and those family were now in the line of fire of madmen — nuclear armed madmen, in all reality. It was the same for him; two decades of training and operations could not completely quash the fear he had for his own wife and three daughters.

He returned to the microphone after a moment of trying to see through the fear. "I will post the orders as is proper, and I will post this SSIX communication which releases us to those orders. The order package has some flowery language about priority of targets and fallback procedures and such, but in reality the _Longboat_ will operate under one principle: kill them all and let God sort the wreckage out. And our first target is dead ahead of us at 7000 meters, an old _Typhoon_ missile sub the Earth Alliance recommissioned from the old Soviet Union."

The XO looked to his fire control officers. "Attack center crew, begin plotting a fire solution, your target is Typhoon One."

-x-x-x-

(6 April CE 73, 1330 Hours UTC)  
>(Ptolemaeus Military Base, Luna)<p>

"Permission to board, Rear Admiral?" Admiral Sutherland requested of the ship's commanding officer by way of a growler phone next to the gangway entrance

"Permission granted," Rear Admiral Natarle Badgiruel answered immediately.

Bondsman Janei, a captured Mendel Mobile Suit pilot that Admiral Sutherland had very carefully guarded from the Blue Cosmos factions among the Earth Alliance, was first into the gangway with the Admiral's gear set and his own paltry equipment. The Admiral was also not bounding into the ship with empty hands, and his two immediate subordinates (smart ones) were also going with the ships to Terra...or more specifically, out of the line of attack of the _Mjolnr_.

"Where to, sir?" the Bondsman asked after he hit the first intersection inside the ship.

"Up two levels and toward the stern. They have guest quarters in the grav block for us. You will bunk in with Commodore Higgins."

"Aff, sir." Finding the necessary ladder was not big deal for the Mage, nor was it a challenge for the Eugenic MS Pilot to heft the heavy containers up the ladder to the next floor. Once the three officers and a Bondsman made it up to the next floor, he tossed the containers up to the #3 deck where they would be staying. The gravity deck was where all the quarters were at, a rotating section inside the center of the ship that simulated gravity conditions. Supposedly, the older Magi ships even had the rotating sections, though newer models took advantage of a Gravitic Lattice that provided whole-ship variable gravity.

"I am looking forward to escaping this death-trap," Commodore Higgins noted. "So much the better that we were requested specifically to depart."

"The game is not over for us, at least until we depart the dry-dock," the Admiral noted.

"Maybe not even then," the Bondsman noted. "Doubtless the _Mjolnr_ will know we have departed the Moon not long after we depart this rock. I can see several possible scenarios where they hit us and Luna in concurrent strikes. Our safety is not guaranteed."

"A realistic ray of sunshine," Commodore Beats noted with a soured tone.

"At this point, do you expect it?" Admiral Sutherland asked before he jumped off to the grav section.

"Neg, sir, if we are retreating fast enough the _Mjolnr_ will focus on live targets at Ptolemaeus. That does not mean we will be off the list; once they are done on Luna, catching us in the arse may not be a hugely difficult challenge for the ship." The Commodores were next through the grav interface, followed quickly by the Bondsman.

"Our quarters are here," the Admiral pointed to a pair of double-bunk rooms. Janei deposited the hard-case for the Admiral's gear on his bunk, then exited the room for his quarters with the other hard-case and his own duffel.

"Never asked you before, so I figure now is as good a time as any," Commodore Higgins began, but hesitated. "Why did you assent to becoming a Bondsman, instead of taking the prisoner transfer like your team-mates?"

The Bondsman chuckled. "I knew that only a fraction of the OMNI force structure was beyond redemption. Thankfully, I fell in as bondsman to part of the reasonable side of OMNI, and the Admiral's removal from command for 'political unreliability' is simply reinforcement of that point."

"And now that segment that is beyond redemption is calling the shots," the Commodore noted with extreme cynicism in his voice. "God help us, we'll need it when the Mages come looking for blood."

"You did warn them, Commodore Beats warned them, the Admiral warned them repeatedly, even I made it known this would be the outcome. Still, there is only so much one can do to prevent the foolhardy from impaling themselves on the pikes of their foes, quiaff?" Janei noted.

"Aff, sadly true, Janei, sadly true," the Commodore answered ruefully. Unlike a goodly portion of the OMNI officers, Commodore Higgins was not afraid to learn the linguistic nuances of the Magi. Given the EA's failure to erase them from the stars, it was now patently obvious the _Mjolnr_ was here to stay.

"Janei," the Admiral prompted from the doorway. "We've been summoned to the Stateroom. Commore Higgins, stow the gear and get ready for departure. We're leaving in 90 minutes."

"Aye aye, Admiral," the Commodore received Janei's duffel, while the Bondsman was out the door and shortly behind the Admiral.

"You are quite accurate about the outcome of this issue, Bondsman. Throwing nuclear arms in the general direction of the Magi is not considered a good strategy to make it to retirement age. Still, these matters are being decided at levels far above us, and those levels are manned by people most easily described as sociopaths. Power corrupts, but absolute power attracts those who begin with corruption," the Admiral pointed out as the two transited to the zero-gravity forward section of the ship.

"Corruption knows no boundaries, nor does sociopathy. The challenge becomes keeping those persons out of positions where they can cause destruction — either through victory, or failure."

"In this case we have to remove the sociopath at the helm, and hopefully offer something up to the Magi before they erase us off the face of the planet." Sutherland was silent for about forty meters of hallway travel, then asked a question the Bondsman was not expecting. "Will the Star Admiral turn his guns on the planet in a saturation strike?"

"At this point, I have no reason to believe he will not do at least some suborbital bombardment," Janei answered coldly. "Wayne Centara was a maverick among mavericks in the Admiralty of the Mages. The Admiralty Review and Assignment Board put him in command of the _Mjolnr_ and its derelict patrol fleet as a way to prevent him from outstripping and dishonoring the Admiralty Review, in the hopes that he could not make any success out of the _Mjolnr_ worth talking about. Wayne was planning on using suborbital bombardment on the Admiralty Review Board after such a time as the _Mjolnr_ had proved itself above the Board's jurisdiction. The jump accident that landed us here had effectively nuked those plans, but now Wayne has his chance to prove himself far beyond the Board's assessment, and the vehicle to those apropos will be Blue Cosmos and OMNI." The Admiral had stopped at the door to the stateroom, but had not signaled he was there to the Rear Admiral. "Oh yes, Admiral Sutherland, Wayne may be a commensurate leader and administrator, but just as with every other Mage officer he does have his codex to consider. And it shall be a significant codex record, whence he is standing on the wreckage of the Earth Alliance with the battle flag of the _Mjolnr_ jabbed into the faceplate of a downed Windam Mobile Suit."

The Admiral nodded curtly. "Were I in his position, I could scarcely stop myself from doing the same," Sutherland acknowledged, then thumbed the call button for the Stateroom. "Be prepared to repeat that to Natarle."

"Enter," Natarle acknowledged after a moment. The Admiral led the Bondsman in, where both saluted the ranking officer of the ship. "Admiral Sutherland, Bondsman Janei, welcome aboard the _Ophanim_. I heard what you had to say about the Star Admiral, Janei, so you can skip repeating it."

"Thank you, ma'am," the Bondsman answered.

"We will be departing in 85 minutes, but when we get there, then what sir? As much as I hate to admit it, there is no place in the Earth Sphere that is immune to the fury of the Magi at this point."

"When we are en-route, we will be discussing options," Sutherland said. "I will need your sharp mind and instincts for this, because the Magi are furious and they won't stop at anything to flatten the Earth Alliance unless we give them a reason to call their Trial done."

Natarle was silent for several moments, deciphering Sutherland's phrasing. After she understood it: "I hear you loud and clear, sir. And I agree. No way out unless they think the job is done, and right now that's not a hard order to give. The easiest criminal charge we could hit the command level with is 'unspecified war crimes' and the list gets longer the more you think about it."

"This will either terminate our careers and our lives, or it may prevent a second massacre on Terra," William Sutherland declared coldly.

The three, Admiral, Rear Admiral, and Bondsman, had no way of knowing they would not get a chance to stop the action to come, but not for a reason anyone in the room could predict.

-x-x-x-

(7 April CE 73, 0800 Hours UTC)  
>(ZAFT Military Station Armory One)<p>

"Chairman on Deck!" the Chief of the Watch shouted after he realized who had entered the bridge.

Chairman Durandal came to a stop at the 'jumpseats' and map table above and behind the Captain's chair. He took several seconds to look around the faces of the bridge staff, which did not include the pilots for the ship's mobile compliment but did include some of the same watch staff that had been on duty that day. The looks of depression and angst were in many eyes, knowing they came so close to saving Mendel II but in the end they failed.

Except, the Magi perversely did not believe they failed. Durandal was wary of the Star Admiral's logic until he read the unit citation for the _Minerva_ earlier in the day. Prior to reading that document, Gilbert Durandal was not entirely convinced of the institutional sanity of the Multimage Star Empire, especially given their long-stated desire to win the war Ragnarok (Armageddon was the final war's common modern name) by way of out-numbering the enemies and powercrushing them using superior technology, tactics and numbers.

After reading the citation thoroughly, and comparing it to the preamble of the Magi Remembrance, Durandal was convinced that the Magi institutionally were the one sane party in the game, and everyone else was busy 'jacking off at the jumpoff point' to use one of their favored aphorisms for wasting time and effort. The more hilarious parallel the two documents created for Durandal was the indirect method Wayne had convinced ZAFT to go along with the overarching Magi plan for winning the final war. By way of providing ZAFT a way to defeat Blue Cosmos by sheer and unstoppable expansion, Wayne Centara had ensured that ZAFT would be along for the ride into Ragnarok at the end, thus further skewing the numbers game in the favor of the Magi. The sheer subtlety of the method was completely unMagelike, but Durandal considered it an excellent chess move that accomplished results on many levels. Durandal had penned a response to be couriered to Wayne to congratulate him on the play, and to reaffirm ZAFT would be following of that plan.

Now, the crew of the _Minerva_ needed to know that the rest of Existence did not believe this ship the screwups that they thought of themselves.

"Talia, I would like to address the entire ship, if you will permit it?" Chairman Durandal requested.

"Certainly, Chairman." She picked up her growler phone and dialed in the 1MC communication option, which broadcast her to the entire internal and external speaker system on the _Minerva_. "Attention all hands, attention all hands, this is Captain Gladys. Please pause all operational tasks or repairs in a safe manner and listen up. Chairman Durandal has an announcement to make at this time." She waved the growler phone to the Chairman.

Gilbert received the phone and held it up to where he could speak into it.

-x-

Lunamaria had perked up when she heard that the Chairman would be speaking, but not much.

First, her overarching failure still haunted her, and she figured it would continue to haunt her for the rest of her life. The sight of bodies floating in space, struggling against the lack of atmosphere, suffocating and freezing in ways that she could do nothing to remedy, those would be images of her nightmares for years to come.

Second, Lunamaria figured she could assuage at least some of the horrid memories by way of venting her failure on the Earth Alliance. She had requested the right to transfer to the _Mjolnr_ as a ZAFT liaison, though that plan was sunk pretty much immediately by the Chairman. He did not give an explanation then, and she wasn't expecting one now.

"Attention crew and pilots of the _Minerva_, I am Chairman Gilbert Durandal, PLANT Supreme Council. I will start this by skipping over the accolades from the Council, as your actions undoubtedly contributed to the defense of Armory One but that was not the primary reason you went into battle. Those citations are posted in the crew lounge for anyone who wishes to see them."

"Good of him not to rehash something we've all read," one of the junior mechanics noted during a pause.

"I am speaking to you today not for ZAFT, but for the Multimage Protectorate of Mendel, of whom you took to their defense without request from the Magi. While you may think this the properly human thing to do, the Magi consider it rare and meritorious that others would come to their defense; their long history is rife with conflict where they stood alone and unsupported, often times against overwhelming odds, for a multitude of reasons. That the _Minerva_ moved in their defense in the face of nuclear omnicide is significant beyond mere mention."

"We did what we could, but it wasn't enough," Shinn inadvertently echoed the thoughts inside Lunamaria's head.

"Before I continue with Mendel's citation, I want to make my personal position clear. I ordered the _Minerva_ into battle as a bellwether and to assist in the defense of Mendel, under the knowledge that if Mendel collapsed they would come for us next. After seeing the reality of what the Minerva faced you survived a battle that should not have been survivable, and by all rights fought hard in a battle that was technically unwinnable. That one of Mendel's two colonies survived is beating the odds; with the total throw weight of nuclear arms used in that battle, the Earth Alliance had more than enough firepower to annihilate the PLANTs three times over with spare missiles to return to inventory. There is no question that your bravery and actions have far exceeded expectations."

"Blow job," one of the more crass and rude structures technicians said. "Blow. Job." He was making a very offensive gesture in the region of his whang.

"Hand job," a crew lady said before she punched out the offending Technician. "Have a nice day," she said before his unconscious body departed the sofa and began floating away from it.

"The Star Admiral of the Magi forces recognizes the sheer impossibility of the results we witnessed. Among the Multimage Empire, it is a requirement that they appropriately acknowledge the actions of others, especially those from other nations who act in defense of Magi civilians. As such, Star Admiral Centara has done the following four actions for the _Minerva_, all of which take effect immediately. First, the _Minerva_ and all crew have been submitted into record on a citation for the Order of the Gray Banner, the second-highest medal for bravery and action among the Empire. As the Ambassador to ZAFT once explained to me, the Gray Banner is a medal that is very seldom awarded, and very rarely to someone who survived to collect it personally."

"A lot of us didn't survive to collect it," a mechanic groused. Compared to some of the Magi ships, the _Minerva_ did not take a huge amount of damage. Still, yesterday the crew had to muster in the hangar bay for the departure of 43 caskets from the ship, which was still a significant portion of the crew slain in battle.

Durandal resumed after a moment. "Second, the _Minerva_ has received an education grant for all crewmembers for continuing or collegiate education, to be honored in Multimage or ZAFT territory at an education facility of personal choice."

"Now that's different," Rey Za Burrel noted with surprise. "Maybe I can get into GARM R&D for some of their graduate genetic classes."

"Third, a single pilot from this ship has been entered into citation for an Order of the Triad. Most of you already know, but for those who do not recognize the name, the Order of the Triad is the highest Magi medal for valor; analogous to the Order of the Nebula, but issued far less on average. The major prerequisite of a citation for an Order of the Triad is the actions taken had to conspicuously and directly save lives. Now, given the incident cited, one would think there was not much in the way that could be considered saving lives, but the citation explains how. 'By way of destroying the missile engine before it struck the colony, the missile did not have enough inertia to reach the optimum detonation position inside the colony. As such, a significant portion of the blast energy was expended on the ground and hull of the colony, rather than added to the pressure wave inside the colony atmosphere. This crucial difference in damage profile contributed to the retention of integrity in the industrial and military harbor area, where some 66,230 persons were rescued alive by follow-on forces. It is estimated that these persons would have been killed had the missile reached optimum detonation location, and this variance can be attributed solely to the act of ZAFT Pilot Lunamaria Hawke in its entirety, as no other unit was able to target or cripple this missile during its flight.' So goes the citation for the medal, which has to be approved by the Empress of the Magi. Per the letter penned to me by the Star Admiral, none of the command staff persons believe the citations will be denied by either the Division Commander Techstrikers or the Empress."

"That's...what he meant," Luna perked up when Shinn mentioned it. "Luna, did you hear that?"

"I did, but — aw, hell with it. I seem to be the only person in Existence that thinks I screwed that up," Luna said. "Maybe I didn't? For sure, that partial hit saved lives, if the Star Admiral is willing to front it to the Empress for recognition."

The speaker popped briefly, which indicated that Durandal had let off the growler phone switch briefly. "Lastly, and this one is also for our 'red machine' pilot Lunamaria Hawke, is something of a more permanent recognition by the Star Admiral. Every large Magi military formation, every Warship, every planet, and the Empire as a whole, has their own individual Remembrance, a long poem that details the history of the unit in question. Century Commander Lightbringer once explained the matter: of the roughly ten percent of persons who live to collect an Order of the Triad, only a third of their rank would make it into their unit's Remembrance, for it is living history in the old poems. The new passage reads as follows: 'In the final moment of darkness, a red light stood and shone brightly; though the red light could not squelch the darkness, that it dared to try made it the brightest light of that hour,' is what the Star Admiral has added to the Remembrance of the _Mjolnr_. As these ships are lifetime-hulls, ergo once they are built they stay in service until destroyed, many crews to come along for the _Mjolnr_ will read of it in decades to come, and the Remembrance of a Phalanx-class ship is required study for schoolchildren on the ship's home planet."

That realization caused Luna to sit bolt-upright, beet-red in the face. With one sentence, Durandal had just declared that she would be famous for centuries, maybe even millennia to come. And her ZAFT personnel file picture was not the most flattering picture of her by any stretch of the imagination.

"Living history," Rey Za Burrel noted. "Takes a different mindset to think that way, but I can see their point."

"So now what?" Shinn asked. "You alright, Luna?"

"I'll live," she grumped, going over ways that she could rectify her personnel file with better graphics, though it was all for naught. Her couple times touring the _Mjolnr_ during training exercises had exposed her to Enhanced Sensor systems repeatedly, and the warship's AI had decided its own senor model of Luna was far more accurate (and flattering) than her file picture from ZAFT.

The speaker system popped again. "The achievements of the _Minerva_ have not gone unnoticed, nor her pilots, but keep in mind this is a blossoming war; the true battles have not even begun as of yet. Unlike the last time, this war cannot be settled in space; the first, loudest, and only willing belligerent in this war is primarily terrestrial. It will have to be resolved on the ground, and for that the Magi shall need help from ZAFT and from others yet to be named. It is the conclusion of the ZAFT Supreme Council that if we fail to act and neutralize the threat now, then the next nuclear exchange will be between our forces and the Earth Alliance, with the PLANTs in the crosshairs. This outcome is entirely unacceptable to ZAFT."

"No shit, sensei," one of the engine technicians replied to the speaker and by extension to Durandal himself.

"As of right now, ZAFT is considered at a state of undeclared war with the Earth Alliance, and our first direct action is to assign the warship _Minerva_ to the Magi Task Force Jokers Wild to support the coming campaign on Luna. This may seem to be an unusual decision for an established military to simply attach an independent force to the major task force of another nation, however, ZAFT is presently not geared up for a major campaign. Mendel will be leaving for the moon in the next 40 hours. Given the _Minerva_ is the best-readied formation in the fleet, and has personal experience against the most recent Earth Alliance forces, this ship is the proper ship for the task."

"Okay then," Shinn said to nobody in particular. "I guess the price of doing it right is you get to do it again."

"Might as well," Luna answered his rhetorical comment. "They started this war, we can finish it."

Shinn could not help but recognize the steel in her voice, but decided now was not a good time to comment on it.

-x-x-x-

(8 April CE 73, 2345 Hours UTC)  
>(Warship <em>Mjolnr<em>, exiting the Mendel SDIZ)

"All forces, be advised that the _Mjolnr_ is now on the move. We have an ETA of 4 hours to combat operations. All units are now at condition 2 alert and rules of engagement," the Star Admiral announced over the loudspeakers of all of the ships in the fleet.

"Time to get to it," Mechwarrior Woody said to his comrades.

"Yeah, we'll be in it," the new Star Commander of the Crimson Guard noted with a smile. "After the fuckers nuked us, I'm looking forward to it." Rick set down a clipboard of paperwork he was writing up, then looked over to Woody. "You ready for this? We're not fighting defensive here. This will be us running face-first into a wall of enemy assholes, with the intention of butt-plugging each asshole with a plug and mallet."

"We get paid to make it painful," Woody noted, which was a play on Rick's declaration but kept himself mildly distant from the overarching theme. Woody had figured the gay-oriented military humor from Rick was an act, but after about six months of operating as a full Merc he had learned that Rick was flat-out gay. Not that it mattered to Woody, one way or the other, but he liked a little bit of mental insulation from the subject.

"Oh, we shall," Rick promised the junior Mechwarrior. "I hope you know you'll be in the lead, just as James was."

"Expected. I've already had the weps techs change my loadout around for appropriate action." Woody had swapped around the arsenal that James loved to use, primarily focusing on a good, big gun in the standard Gauss Rifle with three tons of slugs (24 shots). He kept the torso-mounted LRM-15 racks (damnably useful launchers in his opinion, especially when firing indirectly at a target) and revamped the lasers. Gone were the four ER Medium lasers, replaced with three equivalent lasers and a Medium Pulse laser for precision work, and Woody added a pair of standard SRM-4 launchers for close-in butchering. Woody knew, with the EA desperate to hold onto Ptolemaeus, he would have to deal with Mobile Suits in close quarters, and Mobile Suits did not play well with SRMs.

"Good. This one is going to get hellish fast, though thankfully we are part of a solid battle line," Rick commented.

"Our Galaxy Commander, Malthus, how good is he?" Woody asked.

"Wade Malthus? He's descended of Jade Falcon blood. The guy knows what he's doing, and is plenty aggressive enough to do it right. There aren't all that many incompetent Galaxy Commanders in the Empire, the process is geared to naturally select the best of the best. A few bullshitters make it to Century Commander here and there, but those are very rare."

"Nice. I know I am not cut out for those ranks, but the future is today, and yesterday I wasn't expecting to be a line Mechwarrior." Woody's Codex, issued to him by Galaxy Commander Malthus, made that infinitely clear. His Trial of Position had been fought on the Gigafloat mobile mass driver, in live combat against mercenaries serving under the colors of the Earth Alliance, with multiple kills to his record from a heavily damaged machine that was only marginally combat capable. Now that he was officially a Mechwarrior, he ran a chance to climb the ladder: rank, power, personal glory, kickass machines, kickass commands, the roof was a long way up the ladder for Woody.

"Excuse me, you wouldn't happen to be the Mechwarrior that ended the battle on the Gigafloat, would you?" a lady's voice asked after a moment.

Woody looked over his left shoulder at the speaker, and was significantly shocked to see the green uniform of a ZAFT regular trooper, or in this case a ship's crewmember. He stood up immediately, which gave him a few more moments to observe, and he found he didn't object to what he was looking at. She fell roughly into his age bracket, a little shorter than he was, and not so scrawny she could be mistaken for a supermodel or an anorexic.

"I am," Woody answered. "Woody's the name, orphan that went mech-tech and from tech to accidental Mechwarrior. You are?"

"Meyrin Hawke, Mobile Forces Operator for the _Minerva_," she replied quickly.

"Ah, _Minerva_, damn good to have you along for the ride," Woody said. He could guess by her last name that she was related to Lunamaria Hawke, so that didn't need to be mentioned. "How can I help ya?"

"Trying to understand the other forces," Meyrin said. "I want to know what you guys think is so special about the Battlemechs, if you are willing to answer?" she asked formally, which slightly confused Woody.

Still, an answer was easy. "Mobile Suits operate and live on their mobility. Battlemechs live and operate on their armor and firepower." Woody waved her over toward some of the 'Mech cubicles in the Dropship. "We'll use this one as an example. Iron Golem, an old design but very heavy and hard to kill, first saw use in the old Magi history, right around the time before the end of the First Star League. Weighs pretty close to the same as two Strike Daggers, and weighs significantly more than the GINN. With me so far?"

"Yeah, it's big," Meyrin commented. "Doesn't move fast?"

"It does well enough on rough terrain, but any Mobile Suit can outrun it on foot and outjump it," Woody noted. For all its armor and speed issues, it was still just as fast as his own Blood Asp, though his machine was heavier by fifteen tons. "Top speed is 54 kilometers; common electric cars can get better speed than this thing."

"Okay, that's pretty sad. How does it survive a battlefield?" Meyrin noted.

"Simple: the armor," Woody knocked twice on the top of the foot plate. Meyrin was no metallurgical specialist, but it sounded inordinately heavier than the armor on ZAFT units. "At 80 tons total mass, over a quarter of this machine's weight is armor. 27 tons of hardened armor around the entire machine, which is more armor than is on three Strike Daggers. And, this armor is designed to reduce the damage from any kind of impact or energy weapon, so a company of 12 Strike Daggers would take roughly five minutes of continual fire to completely down this thing," Woody was basing his estimate on the lackluster gunnery training that most Earth Alliance officers went by, which was a perfectly reasonable apropos in the present conflict.

"Okay, that's significant," Meyrin noted.

"Now, that's just sheer survival factor. The weapons are the real game-changer." The Mechwarrior pointed to the left chest area of the machine, then slid his finger outward toward the left arm. "First, no weapons in the arms. That leaves the arms free to carry equipment, captured Mobile Suit weapons, you name it, or an aggressive pilot could use his arms to punch or club a Mobile Suit pilot dumb enough to get close. Hardened feet and leg actuators mean the pilot could kick the legs right out from under most Mobile Suits, as that is one location they traditionally have skimped on armor in a Mobile Suit. People think the Mobile Suit is supreme in close-quarters battle with the invention of the Beam Saber, but 'mechs are not defenseless in close. Hell, some 'Mechs like that Axman are designed to scrap it in close-combat." Woody pointed halfway around the bay to a slightly smaller machine with large missile packs on its shoulders and a very prominent axe in its right hand.

"Okay, that's...different from what I heard. I thought 'Mechs were walking gun boats."

"Yes, sorta. On this one, you've got a Gauss Rifle, a LRM launcher, a SRM launcher, and three extended-range medium lasers, and enough ammo for several minutes of continued fire. So, you have three weapons that will scrap down a Strike Dagger in pretty much one shot, one of those weapons outranges a Strike Dagger and another is matched in range, plus the three Medium lasers in close can cause serious or crippling damage to first-gen Mobile Suits. See where it's going?"

"Okay, that makes sense," Meyrin judged after thinking about it for a few moments. "So, the five 'mechs in this row have the firepower of a couple dozen Strike Daggers?"

"More like the firepower of a battalion of Strike Daggers," Woody slightly over-estimated the striking power of the Assault Star in question. "Hell, the Highlander IIM, the big white thing right there, has even more firepower than the Iron Golem, and has Jump Jets — these things are literally designed to jump up above an unsuspecting or crippled machine, and drop their 95 tons right down on top of it. It's called a Highlander Burial when that happens, and it usually puts the target six meters under. Add to that the Awesome IIM, the 11-Q variant with three ER PPCs and enough heat sinks to fire them all day long, the Warhawk with the quad PPCs, and lastly the Dondasch Heavy Armor Siege 'Mech, you have a recipe for fortress breaking. These five machines can soak up sheer gigajuloes of firepower without slowing down, and the pilots are top-notch — I'd expect them to drop a Strike Dagger every other second or so when they get fully in pace."

"That's...not what I was told...at all," Meyrin admitted. "Can you show me a simulation of something like that?"

"Yeah, I can run a sim through my machine right now," Woody waved her over to the next cubicle row, where his blood-red Blood Asp was parked and waiting.

"Oh! I recognize this! It's the 'mech you were driving on the Gigafloat!" She hesitated for a moment. "Wait, are the weapons different?"

"Yeah, I swapped around the pods. James favored energy weapons more than I do, I prefer magnetic guns like the Gauss Rifle or Railgun."

Both pilot and operator rode the lift up to his cockpit. "Wow...that's strangely smaller than the cockpit on a Mobile Suit."

"There's a storage space behind the seat. That's where I was when the battle on the Gigafloat happened." Meyrin climbed in and hunkered down a bit, followed by Woody taking his common seat. After he put the neurohelmet on, he jacked in and cleared his throat. "Alligator stew for breakfast."

"What?" Meyrin asked of the nonsensical comment from the Mechwarrior.

"Voice activation confirmed. Welcome, Mechwarrior Woody. Your standing battle orders are listed on monitor 4," the Omnimech responded after a moment of silence.

Woody checked the monitor, though they were unchanged from the initial declaration of war. "Ai, are you active?" Woody asked of the systems around him.

"Yes, Mechwarrior. I have a simulation ready for you right now. Stand by," After a few moments of the screens flickering, the monitors and HUDs all lit up to show a hilly landscape with trees here and there.

"This should only take a few minutes," Woody said. He would be correct, but the change it would cause would last a lifetime for both of them.

-x-x-x-

(9 April CE 73, 0330 Hours UTC)  
>(Warship <em>Mjolnr<em>, Approaching Luna)

"Listen well, for we operate on a tight schedule," Century Commander Lightbringer ordered of everyone who was dialed into the battlefront primary frequency. "We will have ten minutes to clear out the enemy picket, those foolish enough to stand in our way of the first objective. After ten minutes, our ships will be clearing through this area; while the warships are perfectly capable of slagging down an enemy ship, the Dropships are not really designed to be effective against Warships. Best we clear the major enemy resistance before that happens, quiaff?"

"Aff, sir!" One of the Mobile Armor pilots half-shouted.

"I want the Mobile Armors up front, with the Mobile Suits and Aerofighters close behind to defend against any remaining Mobile Forces. Warship cover will be provided by _Dominion, Thrones_ and _Minerva_. Hit them hard and fast, take no prisoners, kill 'em all and count the wreckage. Your ten minutes starts now!"

"Ten minutes to breach this? It's not going to be easy," Shinn commented dryly.

"If they had an easy job, Chairman Durandal would have sent the regular forces," Captain Gladys rebuked the lack of confidence in Shinn's voice.

"Gerald already told us how to do it," Rey Za Burrel said. "Follow the Mobile Armors in. Let them absorb and deliver the first wave of abuse, they're designed for it. We mop up the small fry and the stragglers." Rey took the time to attach a fresh magazine to the beam rifle on his ZAKU Phantom's beam rifle. He didn't carry loaded unless he was launching into a shitstorm; when connected, the beam rifle would slowly drain the energy capacitor, robbing him of a few shots in his first load. "And don't worry about the ships so much as the Mobile Suits or Mobile Armors. The Aerofighters are loaded for anti-ship attacks, so we need to worry about the escorts."

"Wait, isn't the phrase 'kill them all' against military code?" Commander Arthur Trine asked from the Bridge of the _Minerva_.

"Those who stand before us now are those who have chosen their fate by not surrendering or disbanding," Century Commander Lightbringer answered before anyone else could speak. "If they are lucky enough to survive our fury, so shall their fate be. I am not in a hurry to give them any consideration, though. Their implicit acceptance of nuclear slaughter makes them pawns to mass-murderers, and the only way to strike down the king is by way of mowing through the pawns, rooks, knights, bishops, and the queen if a good shot presents itself."

"Someone has been playing chess recently," Lunamaria commented dryly. "Diamond Zero, this is Hawke. I will follow you in."

"Hawke, Diamond Zero, much obliged," the Dendrobium Pilot answered. "We intend to sweep most of them before us, but there is always a lucky bastard or two. Just pay attention for what is maneuvering after we plow the road."

Luna wondered at the validity of that plan, but said nothing. She had overheard one of the _Mjolnr_ mechanics commenting on the loss of their Mobile Armors, down to 83 functional units out of a starting 200, but he also pointed out they had limited utility outside of space intercept operations. Most of those losses had happened before the _Mjolnr_ even arrived here in CE-era Terran space, but it still counted.

"Command, Club Element, hard contact on right flank. We are engaging," one of the other Element Commanders reported.

"Hawke, close up on me and grab a hold of one of the latch points on the back of my armor," Diamond Zero said.

"On it," Lunamaria answered. It took her several seconds to close up on the large and fast Dendrobium Orchis (technically, Mobile Fortress by the original Earth Federation designation), but once above the armor she could easily identify the hold points. Grabbing a hold on one with her machine's free hand was no challenge, which left her right arm open to fire on enemies around her. "I'm on," Luna reported after a moment.

"We're fifteen seconds out. If you see 'em, shoot 'em," Diamond Zero ordered. In point of fact, an enemy Naval Beam Cannon struck the I-field defending the Dendrobium and splintered around the unit in four directions, never approaching within 500 meters of the armor. "Command, Diamond Zero reporting hard contact. Fox Two!" Star Captain Kefka launched four separate canister missiles, the micromissile pods that absolutely shredded everything notable in its flight area. After a flight of a hundred kilometers or so, the missiles began ripple-firing the micromissiles into the picket wall of the enemy machines.

"Man, it's like watching a broom absolutely sweep away the little critters!" Shinn half-shouted as the Dendrobium unit he rode did roughly the same thing.

"We've got more work to do!" Rey shouted as he began firing at long range on the remaining enemy Mobile Suits. "Remember, let the Armors handle the ships!"

Lunamaria took the time to sight up one of the stragglers, then dropped a shot on it even as she flew by. The puff of an explosion, the last defiance of its main fuel tank after being ruptured by her beam cannon, and she realized before she could even begin celebrating that she was already past the enemy picket line. "What the — where are we going?"

"Hold onto your ass, kid, we're going to pull a 9G 'stiffy' to hit them from behind," Diamond Zero replied quickly. "This is standard fare for us Dendrobium hardasses."

"Whoooaa SHIT!" Luna had barely managed to hook both of her feet into an armor crevasse in the top of the Dendrobium before the pilot turned it to face the rear of the enemy formation and literally stomped on the engines to full power. She did pop off another shot, this one at an enemy Dagger L with a Launcher Striker pack, but she noticed that her vision was rapidly starting to go to gray — a bad sign of excessive G load.

"Command, Spade Element, hard engage on left flank!" a different formation reported, which bled over to Luna's radio from the _Minerva_ relaying it.

"I'm starting to lose it!" Shinn said. "And you pukes do this all the time?"

"This is nothing new to us," a different pilot in Diamond Element answered.

"Wait, I can reach that Drake from here!" Luna half-shouted before she thought she fired a shot at it.

"Kid, you awake?" Diamond Zero asked after a moment. "Oops, must have grayed her out."

"Kefka, you can be a real asshole sometimes," Diamond Two answered coldly.

"Thank you, Padmavati, thank you," Star Captain Kefka responded with cheer.

"Did I get it?" Luna asked groggily.

"Neg, you missed that window. We'll be in a position to shoot again here in 40 seconds," Kefka responded. "Firing chain mine on port-side _Nelson_ on automatic guide," he announced before the weapons container's armored shutter popped open on the port side and loosed a single rocket-powered chain mine. Luna watched it hazily as the chain wrapped around the hull of the enemy ship, then detonated and laid the _Nelson_ to waste without completely detonating it.

"Okay, okay, did I just pass out briefly?" Luna asked in shock.

"Aye, I believe you did," Diamond Zero answered. "Take no anger upon it, Luna. No Dendrobium rookie has ever done a first-time 9G stiffy and stayed conscious completely through it, and that includes the Century Commander. The _Drake_ you wanted to bust is now in range again," he warned her.

"Okay, I see it," Luna answered. "I have lock, firing!" She dropped the shot without hesitation, convinced internally she had to make up for passing out in the middle of a 'regular' maneuver. Her aim was true, and the _Drake_ was no small target; the beam punched through the rear bottom of the engine pack, exited the front top of the engine pack, bridged the gap to the conning tower, and blew through the back of the bridge to come out of the roof of the bridge. "Score!"

"Nice shot, kid, in the butthole and out the eyeball with a path of destruction in between. A cleaner kill we could not ask for," Diamond Two apprised the damage to the enemy ship immediately.

"Diamond Element, Minerva Element, this is Diamond Zero. We're almost through here, and way ahead of schedule. Make sure the stragglers are mopped up and the welcome mat is out for the big dogs. Minerva Element, enemy has a company of Mobile Suits on the enemy right flank, supported by a _Drake_. That one's on you. Diamond Element, finish up the two Nelsons and assorted scrappers on the enemy left. Good to go?"

"Aff, sir!" One of the ZAFT regulars assigned to the Minerva answered.

"Looks like I'll have a napper with me for the next run," Diamond 3 reported.

"Huh?" Luna looked at Diamond 3, or specifically her back-plate and the Mobile Suit still clinging to it. "Oh, Shinn," Luna said, though not unkindly.

"Kid will have one hellish migraine when he wakes up," Diamond Zero predicted.

"I'm heading right, thanks for the ride Diamond Zero," Lunamaria said before she disengaged and powered her way toward the enemy position she had been ordered to see to.

-x-x-x-

(9 April CE 73, 0400 Hours UTC)  
>(In suborbit over Luna, east of Ptolamaeus)<p>

"Dropship Golf-Delta-Sierra-7-1-0-6-5-5-5 reporting entering drop pattern now. Ground fire reported very light, we will be conducting low-altitude insertion and intend landing at Site Alpha."

"Triple-Five, this is _Mjolnr_ Strategic," Strategic Officer Calamira Weste answered. "Copy your report, begin your drop at your discretion. Fighters have been assigned to defend the drop zones. Good luck, _Mjolnr_ is out."

The Captain stood up and looked around the bridge. Most of the crew were older than her, and most of the bridge staff were Magi leftovers, but she had made it to the position of Dropship Captain on a bet and sheer skill. Nevermind the indigo hair and matching eyes that made her obviously a Coordinator.

"Listen up! We're going in hard and slow! Drop the 'Mechs in the assigned Dropzones and make sure our guns mulch anything foolish enough to look at this ship wrong. Any questions?"

"He he he he he," the gunnery controller for the port side lower weapons array cackled with semi-psychotic delight.

"Is that a water bottle in your pocket, or are you happy to get those kinds of orders?" the gunnery controller for the port side upper array asked her semi-psychotic neighbor.

"The lead hasn't even begun to fly yet and we already have a kill-boner," the Sensor Operator complained.

"This is going to be a hellishly long war," the helmswoman bemoaned.

"He he ha he he!" the same semi-psycho gunnery controller laughed at the others.

"Captain, we're in the pattern and will be at drop altitude in 9-0 seconds," the helmswoman reported after making a significant course correction.

"Take your time, Helm. Advance slow, make sure our guns are in position to fire on any enemies, and keep the altitude proper for free-drop deploy."

-x-

"Queen Cluster, disperse over Landing Patterns 3 and 4, eliminate all resistance and prepare to start aerial sweep toward Ptolamaeus."

"Time to reduce some average life expectancies," Specialist Vhen Ra said with something akin to a savage humor. "This is Queen-7-9, rolling in on Pattern Three Dropzone Charlie, I show minimum four Mobile Suits in the area."

"Queen-7-9, roger that," Queen Zero acknowledged. "Bring the rain and thunder, Specialist."

"Thunder-balls is on the way," Vhen completed the joke about the name of his present fighter. In normal practice, he would be piloting a new craft, the experimental Skygrasper IIM, but it had developed some firmware bugs that rendered it unusable at this time. Even as he was piloting the Thunderball into battle, several programmers and engineers from Handel were on the _Mjolnr_, working hard and fast to get the Skygrasper IIM up and running.

Vhen reefed his fighter into a hard roll left, then put some speed on. In this battle, his challenge was not so much surviving the battle, but making sure enough of the ground forces survived the approach march to Ptolemaeus and Arzachel to be effective. For all that he could shape a battlefield to his liking from the skies, Vhen held no illusions that he could win the battle from his vantage point. Survival was a moot point; even loaded heavy with bombs, rockets, and missiles, his fighter could still outfly the Earth Alliance's new machine, the Windam. And bombs were a temporary hindrance to the fighter…

"Dropship _Sailboat Reborn_ reporting, have begun drops in Pattern 3. Queen-7-9, what is your status?"

"_Sailboat_, this is 7-9, rolling in on target area now," Vhen made one last correction to the area before he released a pair of cluster bombs toward the enemy's small-crater hide spot. The Thunderball did not overfly the enemy machines, instead Vhen banked and rolled right to clear the engagement area, allowing the cluster munitions to do the necessary job. "Two clusters away, requesting BDA from _Sailboat_ if you have LOS."

"Standby," the sensor operator on the Dropship said. Ten seconds later: "Queen-7-9, BDA is as follows: drop on target, confirm four Mobile Suits downed, hidden gun position exposed and destroyed, possible munitions bunker or similar semi-concealed building is now revealed. Recommend recommit for recon and assessment of enemy structure."

"Belay recommendation, 7-9, Queen Lead has it," Queen Zero said. "Continue to Dropzone Delta and clear all hostiles." Vhen clicked his radio switch twice as an acknowledgement, then reefed his fighter hard right to orient on the requested territory. "_Sailboat_, Queen Zero, structure recon confirms enemy munitions bunker. Queen-1-6, can you run a bomb pattern against the facility?"

"Aff, lead," Queen-1-6 responded sharply. "Target zone 1-5 seconds out, CCIP computer active and dialed in for Luna's gravity and no atmosphere. Ten seconds to drop."

"Command, 7-9, Delta Dropzone is semi-fortified, I have three enemy strongpoints with guns overlooking the clear territory. They anticipated this landing location."

"7-9, acknowledged. Designate locations on tac map and pick one to hit at your discretion," Queen Zero ordered.

"Targets designated, I am striking the westernmost of the locations now," Vhen responded. He switched weapon systems over to a literally-ancient fighter weapon, but one still wildly effective against enemy light-armor and medium-armor targets such as Mobile Suits or fixed weapon batteries. "Rocket attack on site, now, now, now!" he squeezed the trigger once, twice, thrice, and a fourth time for good measure, dumping literally a ton (1020 kilograms) of Hydra-70 rockets into the target point built into the top of a crater rim. A second later, the emptied launch pods ejected from his fighter to reduce mass and incrementally increase thrust efficiency for the aircraft.

The Hydra-70 rocket system was so old it literally predated the Multimage Empire, which itself was older than written history on CE Terra. The rockets were still in use by the Magi, however, for their surprising effectiveness and extremely low cost per round comparative to many other weapon systems used on fighters. Upgraded explosives, engine bodies, and fuzing systems doubled their lethality at a pittance of cost and manufacturing complexity, making them every bit as lethal as bombs when used en masse, and far less costly overall. Outfitting a fighter with pods and rockets cost the Empire roughly 2000 c-bills per pod, whereas an equivalent bomb cost over double the rocket pod.

Of the 78 rockets launched from four pods, half of the rockets landed inside the targeted strongpoint. Both enemy Mobile Suits guarding the strongpoint took damage, and the large shell-firing gun was rendered inoperable from two separate rocket hits on its own. The coup de main, though, was delivered by a stray rocket entering the munitions bunker that serviced the cannon where it landed on a bag of propellant charges. Vhen had to bank hard left and hammer his engines to avoid the debris scattered by that hit in a small mushroom cloud of powder and shrapnel.

"Got one strongpoint! Rolling over to the next!"

-x-

"This is Crimson Three, landing now, now, now," Woody declared before his Blood Asp hit the ground. "Crimson Guard on the ground. Now moving for Phase Line Kimberley."

"Looks like the flyboy has definitely cleared those strongpoint defenses," Rick noted. "Means we don't have to waste ammo on a hopeless defense section."

"The less static defenses between here and Ptolemaeus, the better," Woody commented with cheer to voice. "I've got point," He said before his sensors highlighted a hastily-activated defensive position. The gun opened fire on the passing Dropship, but that lasted only as long as it took the Dropship to slam the strongpoint with Advanced Tactical Missiles and 65mm Rotary Autocannon slugs. Five seconds of trading shots, no more bunker. "That was short and messy."

"Now you know why it is normally stressed in Mechwarrior Academy not to assault a Dropship. It usually ends with a brief funeral pyre for the dumbass pilot who attempts it."

"I roger that," Woody noted with a chuckle. "Follow me in, guys!"

"Don't you want the scout forward?" The new 'light' mech pilot for the Crimson Guard asked.

"Not on a relatively open plain like this, Isadore," Rick answered as the team crested the crater edge that most of the strongpoint defenses had been built into. "Look around you, girl, not much to scout out here."

"And not much to shoot, either," Woody grumped. It was obvious there were a lot of defenders in close to the Ptolemaeus rim, some 220 kilometers west of the landing zone, but targets between the fortress and the drop areas were sparse and mostly the province of the Aerofighters.

"Not much, but some," the unit rookie commented pensively. His Summoner Omnimech (1) torso twisted to the right of the formation's movement axis, did not break stride, and loosed a PPC into a mostly-camouflaged gun position that had command of the lunar plateau they were preparing to step down onto. The arc of ion bolt struck the coilgun and backfed into the weapon's charging system, which caused the capacitors to detonate in something akin to a munitions explosion (2). The pressurized portions of the facility were vented to open space, which assuredly killed any crewmen who were not suited up at the time. "That one's down."

"I have another, dead ahead," Woody said before he fired his left-side LRM-15 launcher into it at close range. The missiles had no trouble tracking into the SAM mount that was trying to lock on the Aerofighters overhead, and like a lot of Earth Alliance weapons systems the launchers were not designed to take the kind of abuse ground armor could dish. "It's down."

"Unit, assemble in reverse wedge formation, I want Woody on the left and Miguel on the right," which put the two heaviest direct-combat 'mechs forward, the Summoner and Lunar Master 'Mechs formed the second line, and the apex of the reverse wedge was Rick's own Naga artillery omnimech. The shuffle took the five pilots roughly twenty seconds to accomplish, including a shot at a stray Strike Dagger MS that was foolhardy enough to try hitting a Heavy 'Mech star all on his own. Isadore put paid to his gambit with a timely salvo of LRMs to the chest

"Nothing like whooping ass and taking names! Might as well earn that miniscule paycheck we get from time to time, eh?" Hans asked from the position behind and to Woody's left, the Summoner's position.

"They actually pay us for such a fun job?" Woody asked with savage cheer. "Where do I collect?"

"We collect when we can safely hangar our 'mechs in Ptolemaeus," Rick said with his own smile to tone. "Time to make it look like we know what we're doing, but we need to be careful for a few. I hear the Star Admiral has a surprise for our noisy neighbors."

-x-x-x-

(9 April CE 73, 0430 Hours UTC)  
>(Ptolemaeus Military Base, Special Projects Hangar Facility 2-2)<p>

"Lieutenant Trogar! This is insane!" the lead engineer on the project claimed. "This thing is not even completely assembled! It's not scheduled for a test run until January of next year! If you launch with it, you won't have any of the defensive systems beyond the Quad Phase Shift armor!"

"That's all I need," Kyle Trogar answered coldly before he locked down the heavy neural-interface helmet that was based on the neural interpreter systems the Magi used in battlemechs. "I don't expect to survive, even if it was fully assembled. I'm just out to provide a rally point for the troops, maybe force a breach and put them on the defensive. And I want to send as many of these monsters to Valhalla as possible, where the whole fucking lot of 'em belongs. Now, if you're through wringing your hands, get in or get to safety."

"Fine, your ass," the Engineer cleared out of the way of the cockpit door and tripped the close latch.

Trogar activated the fission engine's high-power coolant loop systems to start squeezing more power out of the (technically) antiquated technology. ZAFT's advent of the N-Jammer-Canceller made for a renewal of fission reactor technology, even if the treaty banned it. After all, what is a treaty written for except to be broken?

"Attention bay 2-2, this is Trogar, clear the bay. I will be exiting into combat in two minutes!" the Lieutenant ordered over the radio.

"Lieutenant Trogar, bay doors are opening now, you are cleared for launch. This may be a wildly inappropriate thing to say about your unit, but Godspeed to you," the Mobile Forces Operator for the Special Projects Group said.

Kyle laughed at her sardonic quip about his unit. "Very inappropriate for this hunk of metal, girl," he responded. The massive machine paced forward a few steps before he halted at the door that was wildly taller than its present form, but as the engineer had pointed out it had not been fully constructed yet.

"Doors should be open enough in roughly 90 seconds — shit! INCOMING!" After a moment, the radio was inundated with static, a moment before his machine rattled to something akin to an earthquake — or moonquake, in local parlance.

"What was that?" Kyle asked after a moment. "Operator?"

"Primary operations room down, the CIC facility was struck by a shot from the _Mjolnr_! They used some kind of shell that penetrated right through the upper layer of defensive plate and cement!" A secondary Operator reported.

"Naval Rail Gun, long-rod penetrator round," Kyle said with no emotion. "Not a shell, it's not designed to explode. It's nothing more than a kinetic kill weapon designed to punch through warships. Apparently it is also useful for busting bunkers."

"Be warned, Kyle, they have four Monitors and the _Mjolnr_ overhead, and they're starting to sweep the battlefield with suborbital fire. This is… God-damned insane!"

"I can see it through the hangar doors," Kyle announced. In the distance, the Battlemech forces were being supported by fire from the enemy Warships, which was both exceedingly accurate and lethal to whatever their guns fell upon. "When someone said they could literally depopulate a planet using suborbital fire, they were not joking. I will be launching in thirty seconds."

-x-

Elisa could literally never remember a time in her career where she was carrying as much ammo as she had on her for this mission. Not that Marines packed it light when operating at any time, but the Armor Sniper had went out of her way to fit a triple ration for just about all of her arms and some extras to boot. After all, it wasn't like she was doing something as crazy as assaulting a fortress or anything, right?

"Mobile Suit on the left!" A Star Captain half-shouted. "3-Alpha-6, can you swarm it?"

"Negative, we're suppressing an enemy strongpoint AP and AT, can you reassign?" the requested Point Commander answered.

"I have it," Elisa noted before she brought her rifle up to position. The targeting system in her armor took a couple seconds to fine-tune the shot trajectory, a necessity for multi-kilometer anti-armor shots. When she was sure she had it dialed in properly the veteran Armor Sniper dropped a single shot, which the sensor systems of all nearby and near-the-flightpath Marines tracked for aiming enhancement purposes. No correction and second shot was required; the slug struck the cockpit door of the Mobile Suit and punched into the crew compartment, likely through the pilot behind the door, and then probably into the back of his chair. Proof that his machine was combat ineffective came from the cessation of fire, the Mobile Suit simply stood there and did nothing even as other forces moved around it. After a moment it bent over, overbalanced, and went face-first into the dust of Luna, sticking its arse up into the airless sky of the moon.

"Nice shot, Sniper. Continue the advance with the Battlemechs, we must force entry and begin taking Ptolemaeus!"

"Looks like some of the bays are still open, we should have an easy entry wherever we want one," Infantry Officer (Heavy Weapons) Cho Eglin noted with some cheer to voice. The first and loudest problem of the Ptolemaeus assault was supposed to be getting inside the base to begin the capture procedure, but with roughly a quarter of the bay doors open and unguarded getting inside would be no manner of challenge.

And then, there were the absurdly large bay doors that had no apparent purpose so far as the Marines could tell, because the Earth Alliance did not have anything 60m tall so far to match the 70m doors. "Looks like we have a bay dead ahead of us, it's opening up. We can get a small Dropship in there, if we had any."

"Wait, there's something behind door number one…" The Marine Point's demolitions specialist groused.

"What the fuck is that thing?" Elisa groused after the door opened a bit more. "Command, 3-Alpha-11 reporting we have some serious shit coming out of a bay at Ptolemaeus. It's big, gross estimate on head height is roughly 40 meters, and it's got a chest full of bigass beam cannons. We're going to want to put some pain down on this thing before it makes a run on the Psycho Gundam's record!"

"Elisa, this is Carlos Michaels. You are authorized to do what you can to bring it down. I will pass your info to upper to add more firepower to the equation," her Galaxy Commander ordered.

"Elisa! Eyes!" Cho half-shouted. "It has a classic Gundam's head! Gouge it's eyes out so we can skull-fuck it!"

"I hear that," Armor Sniper Specialist Elisa said with a smile. Again she braced her shield and her rifle against the shield, though this shot was against a larger target so the aiming was a bit easier. After three seconds, she fired her first shot, then a second shot into the other eye. There was a bit of unreality to it, especially given the flight time of the armor penetrator rounds, but four seconds after the second shot first the left eye violently shattered, then the right eye spidered and began falling apart from the sniper's tender ministrations.

-x-

"Awwu, this is bullshit!" Kyle complained. "I haven't even cleared the fucking bay and some smartass managed to shoot both my eyes out!" After a few more moments, his main viewscreens went completely to static, with the destruction of the forehead-mounted main camera system. "And they got the main. Lousy bastards!"

"Switch to your body-mounted optics," the engineer ordered. "You still have weapons control without the main cameras."

"Roger that, switching over now," Lieutenant Trogar flipped a switch that disabled the main camera feeds, then hit an adjacent switch that also produced static on his monitors. He dropped that switch and hit the third, which gave him a low-resolution view of the forward area. "Damn prototypes, but it's all we got." Three more of the same machines were in hangar cubes behind him, but all were in lesser states of construction than the machine he was riding now.

"Good luck, pilot," the secondary controller noted. "The heaviest concentration of enemy battlemechs is to the eas — " Again, the radio was inundated with static, but this time, the moonquake came with a collapsed wall in the hangar bay for the machine Lieutenant Trogar was riding in.

"They got the secondary command post! What the hell do we do now?" Someone asked on the command frequency.

"We do what we've been paid to do," Kyle said. "We die for our politician's ambitions. And we take as many of these sunzabitches with us to the grave as possible." He heard the distinct 'ping' sound of a round that struck his machine but failed to penetrate. "At least the armor works on this thing. Mendel is in for one fuck of a surprise, even if I am the one-armed bandit at work."

"Coming over the ridge dead ahead of us, big guy! I'm seeing a Trinary of 'Mechs!" one of the bay personnel noted, standing at the bay doors with a pair of binoculars.

"I see them," Kyle noted. "Time to make my presence known. GFAS-X1 Destroy Prototype, Lieutenant Kyle Trogar, launching!" Despite the launch call, his only option was to drive his unit out of the bay, one slow step at a time. For all that the Destroy was a big machine, it was not particularly fast.

As soon as his machine cleared the hangar doors, he was struck by two anti-armor missiles. A wary eye on the damage panels was answer enough that the Quad Phase Shift Armor was doing the job, he suffered no armor or internal damage that registered. The fighter that hit him was too fast to track, but a nearby Battlemech was not too fast. A blast from all four Super Scylla beam cannons was ample to shred it down to scrap and spare parts, a result that most Battlemech pilots did not expect when taking hits from other Mobile Army units.

"Good kill!" the observer shouted. "That's one less Warhawk in Existence!"

Kyle figured a little bit of reverse psychological warfare was in order. A quick setting change to the GUARD frequency for radios and he was ready. "Oi, Mendel, say hello to my little friend!"

-x-

"That pilot didn't live to talk about it," Cho said dejectedly.

"We're still alive to talk about it. Time to make some noise!" A Star Captain of battlemechs shouted.

"We're in on this, charge it! Swarm the damn thing and disassemble it with beam sabers!" Elisa racked her rifle over her right shoulder and began running overland toward the enemy machine.

"Where did they teach you to talk like this? In some Sao Paulo 'Sailor wanna hump hump bar', or is this getaway day and your last shot at his whiskey? Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here," the Infantry Specialist under Elisa commented crassly, quoting an ancient Terran movie As Good As It Gets.

"Shut up and run!" Cho barked at Victoria.

"If this thing squashes us, my ghost will haunt the fuck out of your ghost, Elisa," PO Karen commented even at full run.

Paradoxically, destroying an Omnimech in one shot did not cause the Magi forces to split up or try to get away from the enemy machine. The destruction of a Star Commander's personal ride did nothing more than bring direct focus to the enemy machine, with every 'mech in range focusing firepower on it. As the 3-Alpha-11 infantry point sprinted full out for the enemy machine, intent to board and swarm attack it, they could see the results of laser and particle cannon hits against the armor. No weapon penetrated, but the lasers and ion bolts were able to pock-mark the impressively damage-resistant armor. Missiles and ballistic weapons had no effect whatsoever, which made the now-destroyed Warhawk one of the more valuable units to field against it.

"They're wounding it! Use your energy weapons only!" Point Officer Karen shouted.

"Swarm it! There's only one way to take this sucker down, and it's gonna be us!" Elisa ejected her shield as she ran toward a cliff edge overlooking the enemy machine, ejected her cargo box (and armor sniper rifle), then made a sprinting jump toward the behemoth. Partway there, the sniper fired a magnetic grapnel at the machine's stub of a left arm, and once connected she began to accelerate herself around it with jump jets.

Though done in simulation more than once, Elisa never had to swarm a hostile standing armor unit before in her life, and on this she dwelled on her training only. The first rule she had learned was nothing else existed; it was only herself, her weapons, and the 'mech in question. Second, never put yourself in a place where you could be crushed by the mechanics or shot off by the guns of the unit; she wrapped around and initially looked to land in the barrel of one of the enemy beam cannons, so she diverted high and landed on the prodigious chest of the Gundam. Third lesson from simulations past, the beam saber is king in chopping an enemy unit's armor up, but explosives inside the machine always did more damage faster.

Star Commander Elisa drove her left-side beam saber into the gun housing for two of the unit's four CIWS guns, rendering them unusable, then rammed the right-side beam saber into the back of the machine's right eye and began cutting out the soft plate and hardware so she could gain access to the head's internals.

-x-

Kyle's fourth blast of Super Scylla netted a Bushwacker IIM, a ubiquitous medium 'mech that was favored by the Magi for its low profile and hard-hitting arsenal. The pilot of this one was lucky enough to punch out, though Kyle had the answer for that: 75mm CIWS guns. He tracked the pod until it began a slow descent, but when he yanked the trigger nothing happened. "What the hell?"

"Something wrong, Destroy?" a Colonel asked.

"Sir — something's wrong, I'm starting to lose systems, but all the Omnimechs have stopped firing on me and are shooting at other targets!" The whole Destroy Gundam echoed to the sound of some kind of explosion, though it sounded internal. After a bare moment, his entire head went red, then black on the damage panel, showing it was destroyed. "What the hell? Can anyone see what's going on near my head?"

"Yeah, a Marine just blew your head off with a satchel charge," someone answered.

"A Marine? You mean I have Marines on my machine?" Kyle didn't wait for an affirmative, he got his confirmation from a damage indicator on his upper back. "Oh shit! Someone help me! I can't clear a swarm attack from the Destroy!"

Another blast occurred inside his machine, this time in his left upper leg area. "Jesus! That Marine just took a chunk out of your leg! Gimme a second and I'll remove her by han—FZZZZSSSSTTT." The Mobile Suit that would have responded to the swarm did not make it, a Dire Wolf gunned it down with four Medium Pulse Lasers and a pair of 65mm Ultra Autocannons.

"Holy shit, kid, that bitch on your left leg just set off a couple thermite grenades in there!" The observer from his deployment bay shouted.

"Looks like this is the end of my march. And with the torso twist function still unusable, I can't aim," Kyle said sharply. "DAMNIT! Prototype piece of shit! Only got four kills off it!" He slammed the console in front of him in rage, a blow that caused two control knobs to fall off.

The damage to the left leg was significant, and rapidly tracked down the inside of his leg until it burned off the land mine indicator on the bottom of his foot. Another satchel charge, this time against the internal skeleton of the left upper leg, and his Destroy Gundam buckled and collapsed to the dusts of Luna. He continued operating, the reactor was still providing power and he could see around him, but the right arm was balefully crippled when a Marine put a beam saber into the rear of the shoulder joint, where there was a gap between the Phase Shift plates that made it easily vulnerable to close-in demolition work.

"Not my day today," Kyle groused after the power feeds to his Super Scylla cannons were severed. He tripped the GUARD radio frequency again and keyed the microphone. "This is Destroy Gundam to Marines swarming me right now, you win, I'm out of weapons and maneuver options. You can stop trying to disassemble my machine now."

"Excellent! We have to go clean your house out now, but we'll be back to pick you up here in a few. Hang tight, and grab a MRE if you have one," a surprisingly cheery lady answered immediately.

"I hear you. This is Kyle Trogar, signing off."

-x-x-x-

(9 April CE 73, 0500 Hours UTC)  
>(Inside Ptolemaeus Military Base, East Wing, Assembly Area 3-West)<p>

"Listen up, all of you!" The Captain of Space Marines shouted. "This is the real deal, people! Ptolemaeus is right now surrounded by the enemy, and they are closing in on all four sides. That makes it real easy for us, they've got nowhere to run! We're going to hunt the bastards down, we're going to suppress with massive firepower, and we're going to bury those fuckers out in the dusts!"

The Captain looked up and down his ranks, and considered that it was probably a harsh thought that caused them all to go catatonic with fright. He figured some relent was in order. "I know it is a rough thought, facing off against their Armored Marines, machines and men trained to tangle with Mobile Suits, and even ZAFT claims they killed only four or five of them in Jachin Due. I say, who gives a flying fuck about what ZAFT did? Those space pussies have problems fighting their way out of a cardboard box, so if they can't hack it against the Mendel Armored Marines, I'm not too worried about it," he said with finality.

By now, his whole battalion of troops had gone gray-faced, which he reasonably expected. Despite the pump-up speech the Captain was delivering, he expected raw fear to be a problem when facing Armored Infantry in close quarters. He rightly figured anything that was capable of fighting a Mobile Suit and was reasonably sized to Infantry purposes had to be a significant threat.

"Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we will break down by the Company and hit the armory. Remember, think heavy; these things are wearing armor, and you need anti-armor weapons to do the job."

"Erm, Captain, you wouldn't happen to mean the same armory where I picked this up, would you?" A lady's voice asked from behind the officer.

"Okay, smartass, who authorized you to — erk," he halted cold in his rebuke after he turned to look at the speaker.

"Star Admiral Centara says 'hello'," the dark-blue colored Armored Infantryman said, before she raised an Earth Alliance light machine gun to present and unloaded five rounds of ammo into his chest. "I say _dosvidanya_. Now, what to do about the remainder…" the Ghost Point Commander mused to herself, staring out over the assembled battalion of troops.

Another Ghost stepped forward of the Captain's body, then drew the bolt back on his own Earth Alliance light machine gun. "I believe the orders are, kill anyone who has not surrendered or disbanded and is under Earth Alliance colors?"

"I can live with those orders," a third Ghost answered, though she was carrying an Earth Alliance CQB shotgun.

In less than a full second, 560 pairs of hands were in the air. "Synchronized surrender? That takes all the fun out of vengeance," the fifth Ghost of the point noted with a soured tone to voice.

-x-

"That would be freaking hilarious, if it didn't mean a quarter of our Marines were out of the game now," a Captain of MPs groused at the monitor.

"Fucking Ghosts. All over the damned place." Another set of Ghosts had been rampaging through the northern section of the base, killing everyone and destroying all the major defensive equipment that was not reasonable to capture. "And their visibly irate cousins are just as bad," the same Specialist tapped on a different monitor, where Armored Marines had blown through a pair of reinforced internal barricades to clear the way for other Armored Marines and even Battle Armor troops to move into the base.

"Not much we can do about it, at this point. Once the Armored Marines get inside, you'd need equivalent troops to clear them out. We ain't got none, and we ain't got something on par with 'em," the Captain in charge in the room groused. He picked up a radio microphone and keyed it. "Command, this is Night Watch, show forces closest point of entry is now D ring."

"Thanks for the update, Night Watch, but it doesn't matter now. The Long-Rod Penetrator that took out the central command room also drove through to the power distributor for Cyclops. The whole array is down, and the engineers don't have the hardware to repair it. We might be able to set off one or two dishes by hooking them straight to the reactor turbines, but that ain't going to do shit to this base."

"Roger that. Looks like we lose this one for good. Have Arzachel and Daedalus warned?" the Captain asked.

"They know we are coming for them, just the same as we have come for you," a Chinese-descent voice said from behind the Captain.

"I hope you don't expect me to surrender, honey," the Captain said, still holding the mike toggle so it was heard.

"Fuck surrender," the lady said. "This is a Trial of Annihilation. You want death on the scale of the Star Empires, you get death on the scale of a Star Empire. And it starts with you." The Armored Marine dropped a cluster-grenade disc in the middle of the room, roughly next to the Captain, and turned to leave the security center. The Captain simply stared at the half-meter wide disc; he was intellectually assured it was a weapon, but it was curious enough that he could not look or move away.

The disc unlatched the top section and ejected it with a compressed gas charge, which trained a wire down to the base unit. The disc ejected was not simply a cover, but also a sensor radome that mapped out the target area, which made for the most efficient and lethal bursting of the cluster grenade. The base of the disc ejected some 44 smaller grenade-lets (200g grenade charges) in a randomized dispersal pattern around the room, which was entirely too small for full dispersal, but resulted in severe overkill. When the 'firecrackers' began going off, the explosions and fragmentation shredded everything in the room, man, machine, office furniture, even gouged the steel plate walls notably in several locations.

In weeks to come, the only notable trace of the Captain to be found would be a small part of his MP badge.

-x-

Though the major wet-work of the assault was being handled by the Armored Marines, they were not alone in storming Ptolemaeus. Handel Manufacturing was one of several companies in Mendel producing Battle Armor, an older Infantry Armor system that the Magi still used. It did not have the survivability of Infantry Armor systems, but it also did not have the price and customization requirements of Infantry Armor. In a battle of numbers, Battle Armor had been deemed 'survivable enough' to do the job, and Gerald had selected trainees hard enough to use it properly.

Handel Manufacturing had focused on the utility armor systems, such as the Sapper Land Mine Armor and the Will-o-Wisp Recon armor. Phoenix LAU Technologies had focused on armor with direct applications — Stormjaeger Main Battle Armor, Revenant Siege Battle Armor, Minuteman Rapid Deploy Battle Armor, and others still to be put into deployment. Phoenix LAU was staffed by ZAFT refugees from their held territories on Earth who wanted a piece of Earth Alliance asses on pikes, and Orb expatriates who thought the present political wind coming from their former homeland smelled like douchebaggery and failure. When the Century Commander asked them to do the impossible — build Battle Armors on a very short timetable and make them lethal to anyone they came across — Phoenix LAU smiled and set to it with a vengeance.

Now, that vengeance was in deploy in Ptolemaeus, operating as mercenaries for the Magi. The first sets of the Stormjaeger had not come off the line soon enough to be turned over to the Magi regulars, but the test pilots were more than willing to do the job. After all, the Phoenix LAU production facility existed now as space debris, but thankfully the production staff had built their own safety shelter into the building and were found alive six hours after the blast.

"Four, three, looks like we're approaching the docks for their ships. May not be a sexy goal, but clearing it out wouldn't be a bad idea," the Point Commander for Jaeger Three noted.

"Concur. Second point has lead," PC Four answered.

"Second moving up," the PC of Second Point moved forward at a hard sprint for the armor. At full-on sprint, the armor was capable of 21 kilometers per hour, but had no jump jets unlike many other battle armor units. It could not swarm enemy 'mechs or vehicles, but it could definitely put holes in them with its main gun of an old Martell Medium Laser.

"Lookie here," the third trooper for 3 Point said. The object of his disdain was a group of Earth Alliance infantrymen that were trying to hold the last airlock to the dock bays. Ten infantrymen, a half-dozen noncombatants that were under arms, and a makeshift barricade.

"Hose 'em, we ain't got time for this shit," the Point Commander for 1 Jaegers ordered. His troopers slowed to a marching pace and raised their left arms, all of which had two personal-choice infantry weapons.

Danielle Greer, the Point Commander for 4 Jaeger, preferred the basic automatic rifle and the Mark XX Laser Rifle. Smart enemies wore body armor, which made them resistant to the automatic rifle, but the Earth Alliance had not developed energy-resistant body armor. And, as it happened, her choice of weapons were the right arms for the job. A civilian contractor with an assault rifle lost his face to her rifle, and the EA Infantry officer to his left lost his heart to a 2cm scorch mark of laser energy.

"Cleared," the PC for 1 Jaeger noted. "Move up and trip that airlock! The sooner we secure this area, the sooner our ships can land here!"

"2 Jaeger is in;" "3 Jaeger, we're ready;" "4 Jaeger, good to go," the point commanders reported as their troops positioned inside the airlocks. Nobody had yet taken enough damage to compromise the armor integrity, which meant they were still EVA capable.

"Do it," 1 Jaeger ordered of the guy nearest the airlock controls. After a few moments, the base-side doors began closing, and when they sealed the air began pumping out. "At least they were nice enough to put in high-rate air pumps."

"Should be a minute or two to clear, sir," 3-Jaeger-3 noted. "Though, why the large corridor and airlock? We could fit forty battle armor units in this thing, not just our twenty."

"No joke," 1 Jaeger answered. "Must be a cargo or equipment transfer point. We did pass some pretty gnarly warehouses on the way here."

"Not looking forward to clearing those," the lady in 4-Jaeger-5 answered.

"Won't be us," 1 Jaeger commented dryly. "We don't have enough manpower to do it. The Marines are coming on, so they will probably clear it and strip anything useful."

"Door's coming open on the dock side," 2 Jaeger reported.

"Lock and load, people. Let's make it look like we know what we're doing," 1 Jaeger ordered.

"Charged and ready. This Martell Medium Laser wants some!" 1-Jaeger-4 answered.

"Oh. Oi fucking vey! We've got a bigass problem here, sir!" 2-Jaeger-3 commented after he had his first glimpse of the docking bay.

"No kidding," 1 Jaeger answered after he saw the object of consternation. "All right, guys, listen up. That is a fucking warship in dock, but it's not going anywhere without its engines. Caught overhauling the thrusters, looks like. The rest of the ship is tied to land-lines, so it is powered and probably active. We have to take it out. The upside: it's a big fucking target and it's in a hurry going nowhere. The downside: it's a big fucking target and it's going to take a lot of killing to kill. You with me?"

"Scratch a warship with Battle Armor? Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here," 4-Jaeger-2 commented.

"You imagine what kind of blowjob we'd get if we pulled this off? We make this work, we'd be doing shaving ads and supermodel photo ops for the rest of our natural lives," 3-Jaeger-3 commented.

"Door's open, time to do it," 1 Jaeger ordered. "First target is the top-deck main gun! Hit it with lasers! Save your missiles until we breach the armor!"

"Roger that!" The _Drake_-class ships had two machine cannons, one on the dorsal and one on the ventral side, ostensibly for use on Mobile Suits. In this case, that gun could be powered from shore power and then be turned on the Stormjaeger Battle Armor suits...with disastrous consequences. 2 Jaeger and 3 Jaeger focused their aim on the turret, still facing up and away from the troops, and fired a salvo of lasers at it. Two struck home, but did not appear to do any real damage.

"1 and 4 Jaeger, focus your fire on the near side, hammer on it with the lasers!"

The downside of using the Martell Medium laser in a Battle Armor application is that the laser required a full ten seconds to recharge and cool between shots. On the other hand, that amounted to one shot every ten seconds for 5 minutes until the batteries for the laser ran out of charge. It came down to simple numbers: twenty battle armor troops against the hull of a thin-skinned stationary Warship made for an inevitable result.

But, as these things happened, the enemy wasn't caught completely with dick in hand. The deck gun rotated and aimed at maximum depression, then cut loose at full fire rate of 1200 RPM of 75mm machine cannon. The first run of the gun crossed 3 Jaeger, a burst walked across 3-Jaeger-3 and tore her armor apart with 16 rounds. The lady trooper was mercifully dead before her brain properly understood what happened.

"Take out that Gods-damned gun!" 1 Jaeger ordered as 3-Jaeger-2 was cut to ribbons in the same fashion as his buddy.

Another salvo of lasers was loosed into the ship, focused on the breach point and the gun, and this time the ship suffered worse for the bear. The gun took a laser at the base of the barrel assembly, which caused the barrel housing to fly apart spectacularly in a shower of flying twisted metal and exploding shells. "Gun is down, turning fire on the breach point," 3 Jaeger reported.

"Hot damn! We've got this one," 4 Jaeger (Danielle) reported. "Sorry about Timmy and Tina, those bastards killed 'em."

"Fucking can't believe we're actually trying this," 1-Jaeger-4 noted.

"Fucking can't believe it's working," 2-Jaeger-5 commented dryly.

"Missiles!" 4-Jaeger-2 pointed to the starboard side missile pack on the _Drake_, but for naught. In desperation, the Captain tried to launch his anti-MS missiles at the battle armor troops, but the missiles would not guide that close to the ship and ended up sailing into one of the dock bay doors.

"Their armor was never designed to stop energy weapons, unlike Mendel's armor," 1 Jaeger opined. "Our lasers are roughly double effective against this target, compared to shooting at a 'mech with dual-purpose armor."

A third volley of lasers from the 18 remaining troopers resulted in 12 hits on the target area. "Sir, she's flayed open, should we give her a missile barrage?" 3 Jaeger requested.

"Everyone, fire one salvo of LRMs and one salvo of SRMs," 1 Jaeger ordered.

Danielle Greer (PC for 4 Jaeger) focused her targeting pip on the breached armor area. After a moment, it began rotating, signalling the missiles were locked onto that area. "Fire short-range missiles," she ordered of the voice-command system in her armor. The two SRMs over her right shoulder cut loose and streaked into the breach, though hers were not the first or last into the area by far. "Fire long-range missiles," she ordered next, while the SRMs reloaded.

The LRMs were a little different than the SRMs, namely in range and speed. Because Danielle fired out of sequence (LRMs second), her missiles were last onto target from the Battle Armor troops, fortuitously as it happened. The wave of SRMs from the other troopers — 30 hits in all — were enough to clear the structural metal out of the way to a very critical component. Danielle's two LRMs found the weakened bulkhead of the 75mm machine cannon magazine, where the shape charge punched through the armored plate and sent white-hot copper spall into the primer plate of a 75mm Caseless machine cannon round. One shell detonated those that surrounded it, which detonated a third group of rounds, and so on. In less than a full second, some 12,000 rounds of machine cannon ammo cooked off inside a confined space in the heart of the _Drake_-class ship _Merlin_.

"Oh holy SHIT!" 2 Jaeger shouted as the eighteen surviving troopers turned and sprinted away from the remnant of the ship, or more specifically, the remnant of the conning tower that was now trying to land on the near side dock deck. A few seconds after the last trooper cleared, the conning tower landed and shook the entire area.

"Okay, that worked, maybe a bit too well," 1 Jaeger groused. He was looking back at the now-detached Conning Tower on the pier, and glad he didn't stand around to see if it would miss him.

"Dude, we just fucked a warship using Battle Armor. 30,000 ton escort monitor, 30 tons of Battle Armor. God, I love my day job!" 3-Jaeger-5 shouted.

"Good, because if we can do it once, we can do it again to the _Drake_ in the far-side dock," 1 Jaeger said mirthlessly. "Take a union five to catch your breath, then get ready to go do it again." All the test pilots had a good laugh at the in-joke. Phoenix had received a visit from a union ruffian, trying to goad them into joining, but that rep had never left the facility...

-x-x-x-

(9 April CE 73, 0545 Hours UTC)  
>(Warship <em>Mjolnr<em>, Bridge)

"Attention _Mjolnr_ Communications, this is Galaxy Commander Carlos Michaels broadcasting on open frequency. Authenticate 9-Foxtrot-3-7-Uniform, over," a voice declared on the GUARD frequency. That frequency was open on the bridge just the same, so the Star Admiral and Strategic Officer heard it.

"GC Michaels on open frequency, your authentication is validated. Send your traffic," the command section radio officer ordered.

"Star Admiral, Michaels, I am transmitting to you from their tertiary information center in Ptolemaeus. There are a few sections still resisting in the southern quad of the base, but for all intents and purposes those embers shall be pissed on within the next ten minutes. I have combat engineers in the undercroft right now, disassembling the Cyclops array and searching for any remaining nuclear arms. We now hold Ptolemaeus; this base is now Magi territory."

"HELL YES!" Helmsman Willy started an uproarious cheer that spread throughout most of the ship and the combat personnel on the ground.

Wayne stood silently and listened to his personnel. It was not technically proper discipline to gloat over the erasure of tens of thousands of personnel, and the capture of more, but Wayne was not one for being a stickler about these things. This was beyond diplomacy, beyond honor, it was an affair of survival to the Mendel forces. If that meant making a bloody statement in the dusts of Luna and the meadows of Terra, such was the price of 'diplomacy' at this level. Those who thought they could dictate the terms of living to a Star Empire had best have the capability of doing battle as a Star Empire, or so Wayne had framed the thought long ago.

Today, he was giving the Earth Alliance their first real object lesson in warfare Star Empire style. After roughly a minute, the bridge calmed down, and he picked up a growler phone. "Carlos, Wayne, damn good show on Ptolemaeus," Wayne acknowledged using the same open frequency. "Finish clearing the base, set up materials reprocessing, take a couple-hour breather while you do basic repair and resupply. Prepare for the next round, because I want Arzachel under the Magi banner before 2200 hours."

"Understood, Star Admiral. My men should be patched up, rearmed and ready to roll out by 1100, maybe sooner," Carlos replied. "Wade Malthus just walked in, he thinks he can have two clusters refitted and ready to roll on Arzachel by 0930 if we can get some support services from the Dropships."

"Can you have two clusters ready to roll with Wade's machines by 0930?" Wayne asked. "Arzachel is a third of the size of Ptolemaeus. It won't take the whole Galaxy to do that job."

"Won't take the whole galaxy, no, and I'd like to take the mercs from Phoenix with me. Those boys are pretty hard, they sunk a _Drake_-class ship using four points of the new Stormjaeger battle armor. If they can scratch a ship that out-tonnages them by a factor of a thousand, I think they can do the job in Arzachel."

"Aff, granted. Make sure they are resupplied and truck them along for the fun parade," Wayne ordered.

A quick burst of static on the comm channel presaged the entry of another person into the open-broadcast intimidation chat. "That shall not be necessary, Star Admiral Centara," a distinctly Southeast-Asian voice said on the radio channel. "This is General Cheh Heng Ming, Eurasian military fortress Arzachel. I would like to request a term of surrender whereby my men can be spared the executioner's blade, in exchange for your men walking in and simply taking the fortress uncontested."

"You make an interesting offer, General," Wayne Centara responded. "Justify it."

"We did not participate in nor condone the nuclear assault on Mendel, but unfortunately my state is presently waffling on the matter and I am in a position whereby I have to decide to die on the blade of your sword or turn rogue against my government. Or, another way of looking at it, I have to choose between the hardcore Blue Cosmos genetifascists and then turn around to explain to the pregnant sensor operator in my control room why she has to die for someone else's major fuckup, or I can choose to walk away from this one alive, make sure my men and women stay alive, and I get the added bonus of watching you disassemble Blue Cosmos on interplanetary television. At the end of the day, not a hard choice for a man with a conscience."

Wayne made sure he was off the growler phone's talk switch. "Calamira?"

"He's on the level," Strategic Officer Calamira Weste noted. "And his sensor operator looks like she's due within the week."

"How much do you think I can push?" the Star Admiral asked after a moment of asking.

"He's stopping short of asking to join us. Apparently his entire team thinks the Atlantic Federation needs to go in the can, but as he said his government is waffling on the issue. And, as he pointed out, it was the Atlantic asshats that threw the nukes, not the Eurasians."

"That's how I will run it, then. Time to make up for some losses." Wayne brought the growler phone back up to talking position, but hesitated for a moment to work through the phrasing. "Okay, General Ming, I think I have a way out for your men. Because you are offering a term of surrender outside of direct engagement, I am allowed to work with this by the regulations of Trial of Annihilation. Pass the word around to your men, if we walk in unharassed, your men live to see tomorrow."

"Thank you for being reasonable about this, Star Admiral. I know it is not your way to commit needless slaughter, even if your foes are not willing to show the same courtesy."

"It goes against our purpose to slaughter, but sometimes a message must be delivered," Wayne noted. "Now, your terms are accepted, but Mendel has its own terms," he prompted.

"State your terms, Star Admiral," the General answered.

"Your forces have an option, or more specifically four options. When you surrender to Magi, you may be inducted into our extant systems. You may take a term of bond, to learn the ways of the Magi and eventually becomes patriated into the Empire. You may request a term of jail, at which point you will be released at the cessation of hostilities, though I should note my cessation of hostility shall be the dissolution of all member states of the Earth Alliance and the capture of their territory. Third and fourth, and I offer this choice without prejudice, if any of your personnel cannot bear to surrender, I offer them either a chance to commit _seppuku_ or to be executed, should they not want to abide by the terms of surrender."

The radio channel was silent for over a minute by Wayne's count. "Your terms are heard and Arzachel shall abide by them. I will pass the word around to my personnel of their options. We will have finalized decisions by 1100 when your men are ready to arrive. Arzachel, signing off."

"Conn, sensors, unknown energy spike detected near Daedalus base," one of the Sensor Operators reported before Wayne could begin announcing the good news to his forces.

"Type it," Commander Glennaste Ward ordered.

Calamira looked up from the deck, severely shocked and almost frightened. "Helm, emergency maneuver! Hard to port, full power on the engines! Radio, order all ships to scatter and begin random evasion maneuvers!"

"Conn, sensors! Energy spike magnified an order of magnitude! We've got a major energy weapon here!" the Sensor Controller announced.

"Helm, rotate ship on x axis at the center of gravity, bring the nose up and make us go ballistic while continuing the turn," Wayne Centara ordered immediately. It was a prescient command, given their prior maneuver choice.

-x-x-x-

(9 April CE 73, 0555 Hours UTC)  
>(Atlantic Federation  LOGOS joint Lunar Base Daedalus)

"High-pressure start completed, sir. Ready to fire," the Gun Commander said.

"Fire," the Admiral in charge of the Lunar Base Daedalus ordered.

"We are go for firing sequence!" the Gun Commander shouted down into the control pit.

"Requiem stage one, initiating particle generators," a technician said.

"Stage two, generating particles," another technician noted.

"Stage three, magnetic containment confirmed working," a section lead announced.

"Stage four, forming beam," the control commander announced.

"Geschmeidig Panzer targeting array is aligned, have solid track on enemy warship _Mjolnr_," the controller for the targeting array mirror above the facility noted.

"Sir, ship's maneuvering hard, they know we're here," a Sensor Operator announced.

"Too late," the Gun Commander announced. "Even if we get a partial hit, they will feel our pain."

"Sequence five, discharge now, now now!" the enemy ship began some kind of strange turn to go ballistic, and thus swing its arse out of the targeting profile, but as the Gun Commander noted, it was too little too late. "Requiem, first shot is away!"

The massive particle beam from Requiem streaked straight up to a 'mirror' that bent the beam toward an intended target using a supermagnetic deflection technology common to the Forbidden Gundam, the Geschmeidig Panzer system. The initial Requiem System was to use five deflection points to gradually twist the beam with a very minimal loss of power, but those four other target sections were still under construction and likely would never be finished. A single target point would result in a sharp-turn beam and a significant loss of energy, and the bleed energy would destroy the mirror, but more of the ad-hoc mirrors were available and needed only to be moved into place over the Requiem Cannon.

Three seconds of beam passed through the reflection system before the bleed energy moved and then began destroying the mirror. Three good seconds of beam fire made it to the still-maneuvering _Mjolnr_. Much as predicted, the maneuver was not enough; the three seconds of beam fire punched through the _Mjolnr_ from starboard side to port roughly amidships, cutting a 2-meter swath of damage through the hull and all the material or systems in between. The most notable damage was the loss of a starboard-side Naval Autocannon battery, but the beam did not hit any major systems on its through-and-through pass.

"Good hit, but minimal damage, sir," the Gun Commander said. "She's still maneuvering."

"Well, prepare the next mirror, _schnell_," the Admiral ordered. "They won't be overlong in response. Make sure the static defenses and Mobile Suits are ready for them."

-x-

"NEST One, Kingfisher, deploying hot!" Star Colonel Tellos shouted before he rammed the throttle to the mechanical stop. The catapults on the _Thrones_ kicked him loose and out over the dusts of Luna, headed face-on for Daedalus and its nasty superweapon secret.

"Who ordered NEST onto the field?" Century Commander Lightbringer asked after he heard the launch call.

"I'm out on my own, sir," Kingfisher answered. "Isis and Hellion are still back on the ship. This is a one-man job, just as I did way back in the day under your orders."

"The _Mjolnr_ can do this just as easily — "

"Don't bother, boss-man," Tellos cut the Century Commander off. "We both know the shells on the _Mjolnr_ are our go-to-hell trump card. We don't need to waste strategic devices like that, when we need them to have an angle on their mainland. I've got this shit, and the _Mjolnr_ will not be in position to safely fire for an hour. That gun will be ready to fire again in twenty minutes."

"Okay, you win, you crotchety old nuke-jock," Gerald conceded. "I'll lead you in and clear out some of the dust bunnies. You slay the hairball for good."

"I'm going to have to get real close to make sure it's done right, so they don't intercept the missile early," Kingfisher admitted. "There's no room for a second shot. I don't expect I'll be coming back from this one."

Gerald was silent for several seconds. "One way to glory, old friend."

"Time to make it one last good ride," Kingfisher noted. "Ai, Kingfisher, you online?" He requested on the C3 channel after a moment of considering options.

"I am active and recording," the _Mjolnr_'s Artificial Intelligence entity answered.

"You know how this is going to end. I want to make them quake in fear for it. Play it loud on all their systems, and play a good one."

"Understood," the AI entity answered.

After the first few seconds of guitar, Gerald laughed at his choice of song. "I have the lead. It is time for the Archangel of Solace to ride again!"

" 'A force of light, an angel, sent through time to destroy; avenging the dark ones, descending angelic force,' " Kingfisher echoed the first set of lyrics from the song Gerald had adopted as his psychological theme, _The Hunter_ by Iced Earth. When combined with his Archangel Of Solace Newtype Illusion, which turned his Neue Ziel into a massive six-winged angel of destruction inside the confines of enemy minds, it incited panic in more than 90 percent of enemies.

Much as Gerald intended, three minutes of illusion and assault was enough to break the defenses, never mind those he killed in his assault pass. "Okay, Kingfisher, I've plowed the road. The rest is yours. Gods rest ye, nuke-jock."

"Make sure the LOGOS douchenozzles get to join me in Hell, and we'll call it even," Kingfisher requested. "NEST one, going live. Ai, _Nuclear Attack _by Sabaton, please," he requested as his last song on the way out.

"You cheeky bastard," Gerald commented before Kingfisher locked the barrel assembly into the warhead system on the bazooka.

"Entering emergency release code and authorization," Kingfisher noted even while he did a side-slip maneuver to dodge around a Windam that was trying to close on him. "Warhead unlocked, I'm going for it!"

"This is Lightbringer, raid warning, raid warning, raid warning, antimatter weapons release at enemy base Daedalus! All forces take cover or clear the area!"

"Raid warning acknowledged," Star Admiral Centara responded. "May Existence have mercy on their souls."

" 'Warned but did not heed!' " Kingfisher echoed the last lyric of the song he heard before he pulled the trigger. "HELLO BOYS! NOW SAY HELLO TO MY LIT— " He never finished the taunt before the warhead detonated.

The Antimatter warhead was not aimed at the Requiem Cannon itself — Star Colonel Tellos expected that a particle cannon powerful enough to punch through a _Phalanx_-class ship from side to side had to be shielded by powerful magnetic systems, which would disrupt his weapon. Instead, he aimed the shell at the base facility surrounding the cannon, on the intention of using the blast wave to sunder the cannon and all the support facilities. The shell dug into the base at a shallow angle, buried itself thirty meters into the facilities, then detonated underground as Tellos was approaching the cannon housing.

500 megatons of antimatter detonated 30 meters below the surface still created an impressive above-ground blast, if for no other reason than simple pure energy release. Kingfisher's Physalis Gundam was effectively eradicated by the shockwave and debris, with bits of it to be found in the dusts of Luna for centuries to come. The major damage was done below the ground, where the translated blast wave sheared rock and minerals for 55 kilometers below the surface of Luna. Daedalus itself was literally annihilated by the antimatter release, leaving no survivors, no remnants, just a large, gaping blast crater that spanned roughly three times the size of the initial base as targeted. Debris from the base would be found in orbit many decades after the blast occurred.

"The problem with being the few and the brave is we become braver because we keep becoming fewer and fewer," Gerald Lightbringer said after the initial blast wave passed his machine. "Command, Lightbringer reporting target destroyed. Star Colonel Tellos is KIA. Nuclear Weapons Release secured."

"Confirm raid warning is secured. All forces Task Force Jokers Wild, put 'em on safe and let 'em hang, Luna is ours."

This time, there was no fleet-wide cheering. Ending the battle by nuclear blast was no big thing when facing a weapon of pure destruction such as Requiem. Ending it by losing a nuclear weapons hardass such as Kingfisher was a price the Task Force did not want to see paid.

-x-x-x-

(9 April CE 73, 1030 Hours UTC)  
>(Warship <em>Mjolnr<em>)

"Consolidation phase is well underway, we'll have Arzachel and Ptolemaeus secured before the end of the day. We also have a good haul on campaigning supplies from both bases, as well as plenty of salvage for distribution," Galaxy Commander Malthus reported to the other senior officers.

"The Bondsmen from Arzachel?" Wayne asked after a moment.

"90 percent of the base took the term of bond. These guys are hardcore Eurasians, more than they are hardcore Earth Alliance. Eurasia is not so overrun with BC scumdogs as the Atlantic forces are, and the Eurasians deeply resent LOGOS drawing them into a war that they obviously cannot win." Galaxy Commander Michaels stopped to sigh. "They want vengeance, and the only thing I can say at this point is 'take a number and get in line'."

"Well, for now we consolidate. We'll hit Artemis in a couple days, and we'll drop any other targets of opportunity, but for now we need a breather. The land campaign comes next, and for that we will need to move in concert with allies."

"Speaking of targets of opportunity," Calamira piped up at that point. "I have a nice, fat and juicy target that could make our lives a whole helluva lot easier in coming weeks and months," She taunted the Star Admiral.

"I am listening," Wayne decided the bait was interesting enough…

"You have a counterpart on the EA side. He happened to be smart enough to jump ship when his paymasters started screwing some pooches."

Wayne knew exactly what she was talking about at that point; he had seen the sensor reports of ships fleeing Luna, but decided the primary target needed to be screwed over first. "Sold, but I'm not throwing a shit-ton of assets at a retreating flotilla. Gerald," Wayne prompted his 2-I-C.

"Yo," Century Commander Lightbringer looked up from the tablet he was working on.

"You get to ride again, we've got a hot target of opportunity that needs to be trashed or captured. Take the _Minerva_ and your bad self out to Pirate Point One and intercept with extreme prejudice."

"Gerald's bad self likes that plan," the Century Commander answered for himself in the third person. "Captain Gladys, after you," he gestured to the door for the conference room.

"You first, Century Commander. I never trust a man who speaks of himself in the third," she answered kindly, which caused sniggers from more than a few of the other officers.

"You win," Gerald ducked out the open door, cut right to head toward the main corridor doors, and cut right again into the ventral corridor of the ship.

"Why the _Minerva_, though? If I may ask, that is," Talia Gladys asked.

"You may certainly ask, and the boss wants you guys doing some of the harder space intercept operations in prep for going boot-to-mud. Remember, only the _Minerva_, _Dominion_ and _Thrones_ are atmosphere capable. That's going to make you very critical in our ground game, and probably ZAFT's ground game when they start up."

"And can we get support from your ships when ZAFT begins the ground campaign?" Talia requested.

"Oh, you will get support. A Mage never forgets an ally."

-x-

(45 minutes later, departing Lunar territory)

"Man, you guys really live on a short fuse," Meyrin commented to Gerald Lightbringer's radio channel.

"It's the name of our game. Like a coiled spring; compress the spring, wait for it, wait for it, boing! Or, alternately, like a little angry red bird in a slingshot, waiting to be flung into destroyable objects for points." He chuckled at the look of dismay on Meyrin's face. "Of course, like a real spring, a military that is constantly coiled to strike will wear itself out...eventually."

"So what's your shelf life? Or are you rated to survive a nuclear war?" Shinn asked in a smartass fashion. Several voices protested his question. "Man, no sense of humor!" Shinn rebuked the others on the radio channel.

"My apologies, sir," Rey commented from the cockpit of his machine.

"Two things, Rey, Shinn," Gerald prompted them.

"Sir!" Rey barked immediately.

"What is it?" Shinn responded a little more crassly.

"One, never apologize when you are right or you voice your opinion. Apologies when you stand in your own defense is effectively weakness, and you can guess what weakness gets yourself in these parts," Gerald noted the first lesson.

"Okay...and number two?" Shinn asked.

"Number two, well, that one's a bit more complex. See, shelf life numbers are very deceptive, especially when discussing twinkies and Mobile Armor pilots. See, both Twinkies and myself are well past our 'sell by' date but I'm pretty sure both of the above have plenty of creme filling left."

"Okay...that can be totally misconstrued," Lunamaria complained in disgust.

"It is your mind that went for the gutter, not mine," Gerald said innocently. "In my case, I was referring to brains, but if you want to go south of that, your call and same apropos applies."

"Whoo, Luna, getting hit on by the Century Commander of Mendel, nice catch," Meyrin Hawke commented to her sister.

"Nah, I'm pretty sure an old fart like the Century Commander wouldn't be chasing teens," Luna replied on the sly.

"Actually, I won't date anyone that can't challenge me in direct combat," Gerald said after a few moments of silence. "It leaves slim pickings, as these things happen; of the ladies that can challenge me in direct combat, few of them also fall under the category of someone I can tolerate without random impulses to choke the ever-living shit out of them. Something to do with MA pilot arrogance, the higher you go on the skill ladder, the steeper the arrogance curve."

"Coming from you, not hard to believe," Shinn commented dryly. "Any other wisdom, O great one?"

"Yeah, if you don't have orders, now is a good time for a nap. Murphy's Laws of Combat: Never run when you can walk, never walk when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake if you can get away with lying down."

"Sound advice, pilots," Captain Gladys answered. "Erm, can you fly your Mobile Armor when asleep?" She asked Gerald.

"Pfft, the control computers in this thing take a vote on whether they like the control inputs I make. They can damn well autopilot to Pirate Point One. Gerald is going silent."

Shinn had the puzzle question of the day: "I wonder what kind of music a megalomaniacal Mobile Armor pilot listens to as a lullaby…"

-x-

(9 April CE 73, 1530 Hours UTC)  
>(Warship <em>Ophanim<em>, outer edge of Pirate Point One (Lagrange Point 1), between the Moon and Terra)

"After they are through thrashing us, that space station will be completed and set into production," Rear Admiral Natarle Badgiruel commented to nobody in particular. It was a hallmark of the stress, the not knowing and the clear knowledge, that was beginning to eat at everyone's minds and cause random outbursts.

"They will make it impossible for Blue Cosmos to catch 'em all, and a world shall love them for it," Bondsman Janei answered the rhetorical comment. The ships were passing the abandoned station Asgard, though it was obvious by the tidy environs they intended to resume work on it soon enough.

"What do you think, Janei? All three, already?" Commodore Higgins asked.

"All three, four hours ago, Commodore," Janei estimated. "Ptolemaeus by 0600, Arzachel by 1000, brief consolidation, noon at the latest for victory on Luna. And you saw what happened to Daedalus just the same as I."

"Impressive pothole," the Rear Admiral noted. "Not that I will lose sleep over the destruction of that project, such a laser would be very easily turned on Earth if someone planetside got uppity and decided to resist the Earth Alliance."

"Requiem was its name," Higgins commented dryly. "Supposed to be the final song of the Colonies. Looks like it's first song was the final song for that cannon."

"Conn, Sensors, contact to stern, estimate range 800 kilometers. One Warship, one Mobile Armor."

"On screen," Natarle ordered. "Oh, well well, looks like ZAFT and the Magi are already playing nice. This alliance is no longer just a wet dream in some staff officer's mind, I guess."

"Conn, Sensors, another contact here," the Sensor Operator noted. "Unknown contact, large-area magnetic distortion dead ahead, gaining in power rapidly."

Janei perked up at the second mention. "How rapidly, Sensor Operator?"

Natarle looked over her shoulder to the guest seat that Janei was in. "Something?" The Bondsman nodded grimly. "Answer the question, Operator."

"It's powerful enough to blind our sensors, and should start causing problems with magnetic systems in the next minute," the Operator answered roughly. He did not like the Bondsman and readily showed it.

Janei closed his eyes, rapidly going over several things in his head. "Rear Admiral, strongly recommend you move the ships away from the magnetic point," Janei said quickly. "That magnetic anomaly is the hyper-magnetic exit signature of a Jumpship or Warship coming out of hyperspace from a cross-dimensional jump. And if you're within fifty kilometers of the centroid when the ship lands, the conflicting magnetic forces will shred the _Ophanim_."

Natarle looked forward for a moment, then right to the map of her fleet's location and the now-highlighted magnetic anomaly. Five of her ships were in the danger zone, the rest could make it out alive with only moments to spare, if they began maneuvering immediately. "Radio, Conn, have the _Juno_, _Yukon_, _Montpelier_, _Kerry_, and _Novgorod_ go to full thrust to clear the magnetic point. All other ships are to move away from it as fast as possible. Helm, hard to port, max the engines. Sound collision."

-x-

"Sir, why are we stopping here?" Meyrin asked after a moment's puzzling over the matter.

"We're about to watch some fireworks, ladies and gentlemen! A most thrilling show full of death-begetting stunts and accidents! And it's all thanks to a chunk of real estate known as the Pirate Point."

"You mean, that magnetic field we're seeing...is a Jumpship?" Rey Za Burrel asked.

"No Jumpship, kid, way too big. That is a Warship, and it is loaded heavy." An arc of plasma formed among the space dust collecting more dust in the Pirate Point. "And so it begins!"

"Will they try to sink it on arrival?" Luna asked.

"Try, and likely fail, provided their main guns are not bent out of usable shape to begin with. The magnetic force generated by a _Phalanx_-class coming through can and will tear up smaller ships."

"Wait, what?" Captain Gladys half-shouted. "I thought you couldn't call anyone!"

"You are correct, we did not call this ship," Gerald Lightbringer noted with a soured tone. "Someone must have come looking for us, or already knew where we were. Time to play the game of roulette, spin the wheel and see where it lands."

The first major plasma flare occurred after a bare moment of silence. "What causes those flares?" Rey asked idly.

"The hyper-magnetic forces in the area of the jump literally distort space; the varying gravity and magnetism turns the interstellar dust into brief flashes of plasma. You'll see a good shot of that when the ship fully emerges," the Century Commander folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in the seat. "Give it twenty, thirty seconds by the field being generated."

"And the Earth Alliance ships?" Lunamaria asked.

"Oh, we have a very special name for what will happen to them. The proper term is 'telefrag', where you kill something by teleporting into it, or in this case jumping into it." In point of fact, one of the _Drake_-class ships was briefly lashed by a plasma trail, which burned off some of the paint and left a hellish scorch mark but damaged not much else. "Fifteen seconds, thereabouts."

A much larger plasma flare revealed the full length of the object. "Oh, shit, it's just as big as the _Mjolnr_, maybe larger," Shinn commented.

"It is a sister to the Old Mo', kid. This is not a rowboat swinging by to pick someone up, they bringing the whole can!" Gerald commented as the plasma flares increased in frequency and density.

The final flare was a sight to behold, Meyrin figured. All at once, a bright halo of plasma emerged from the centroid of the jump point, expanding radially away from the ship it haloed, and as it moved it cooled to the point of dissipation. Left behind was the hulk of a _Phalanx_-class Warship, and the scrap chunks of three Earth Alliance ships foolhardy enough to be too close to the arrival point. Just exactly as Gerald had described, the ship's arrival was lethal to anything nearby.

"Ship's arrived! Getting IFF information now!" the sensor operator on the _Minerva_ declared.

-x-

"Conn, Sensors, ship has arrived! IFF Information...confirmed! Hull Mike-Hotel-Whiskey-two-two-niner-one, callsign _Golden Phoenix_!"

"And she's full fucking loaded," Admiral Sutherland noted; the whole length of the ship was studded with the far smaller but visually-significant _Guild II_-class Dropships.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you are now looking at the reaper of the Earth Alliance," Bondsman Janei noted. "Those are combat deploy Dropships, mostly for Infantry forces. No monitors; the expectation is the existing ships would do that job. Just the Big Yellow Bird, and over a Legion of troops. Whoever loaded that ship is playing for keeps."

"Rear Admiral, we've lost contact with _Juno_, _Novgorod_, and _Kerry_. _Montpelier_ reports they were caught close to the ship and twisted themselves apart before they blew."

"Classic telefrag," Janei pointed out. "Time and space are very unyielding, especially when it is time for a certain space to be occupied by an incoming Jumpship or Warship."

"Conn, radio, listen to this bullshit," the radio operator flipped a switch on his console that put the signal out to the entire bridge. The first and most haunting indicator they were hearing something was some maniacal laughter on the radio channel.

"Is that...Gerald Lightbringer?" Admiral Sutherland asked over the sound of his laughing. Others on the bridge of the _Ophanim_ considered that he had an excellent laugh for the prototypical evil genius or maniacal dictator.

"That is his Mobile Armor coming in with the _Minerva_," Rear Admiral Badgiruel noted. "Conceited bastard."

The radio system crackled after a moment, which made sense given what Natarle had read on the effects of interstellar and interdimensional jumping. Local magnetics could sometimes interfere with them after a jump.

"Good to see you still have a sense of humor, Century Commander Lightbringer," a wholly unfamiliar guy's voice commented in a sardonic tone.

"Simply enjoying my job, Division Commander Agrippa," Gerald answered heartily.

"Division Commander Agrippa? Here?" Janei asked. "Oh shit, they're not just playing for keeps, they're playing for prestige kills here," the Bondsman noted. "He's some seriously bad news."

Lightbringer continued on. "I would like to welcome you to Cosmic Era Terra, where nobody is right because everyone can't stop fucking with each other, and I would like to award the _Golden Phoenix_ three points for telefragging part of a fleet of tangos. Now, I can sense two other notable kindred souls on the bridge, but can't identify. To whom do I owe the pleasure?"

"Your bosses' bosses' boss," a lady answered with a hint of cheer to voice. "Been a while, Lightbringer. I hope you have been keeping it on the level?"

Gerald barked a short fit of laughter at the inside joke. "Aff, milady Atrebas, but only for certain definitions of the word 'level'," the Century Commander answered heartily.

"Only one lady in the Empire with the last name Atrebas, and that is Empress Rini Atrebas," Janei noted, though he knew it was for the consumption of the EA personnel.

"And who's our next contestant?" Gerald requested.

"Be wary, Gerald, you know how my husband deals with certain illusions of impropriety," a surprisingly-quiet voice answered the Century Commander.

"Whoa, shit," Bondsman Janei noted. "If I'm remembering that voice right, that would be Master Executor Hotaru Tomoe, the Princess of Silence."

"That doesn't sound good," Admiral Sutherland noted.

"It's not," Janei confirmed. "Executors are basically all of the old tales of mysics, Gods and wizards, wrapped up in one package and amplified into the gigatons range, then given the order to defend life and honor throughout the Star Empires. Master Executors are the best of the best; they get sent on all the really tough campaigns to make sure the job is done right the first time. With Master Executor Tomoe here, the question is not 'will I lose' but instead is 'when shall I lose, and how thoroughly', because when the Firefly of Silence is in a campaign, the OpFor has already lost and the only thing that needs to be answered is how she does it."

"That's a bit hard to believe, one lady can change the whole war instantly?" The Sensor Operator raged at the Bondsman's explanation.

"You're not understanding the major detail here, which is perfectly reasonable. Executor Tomoe is one of a trinity of Star League-affiliated persons who have the ability to read the past, the present, and the future just by 'understanding' the history involved. Her sword, Ragnarok, reads and writes history as it deems necessary. And there is absolutely nothing you or I can do to escape that reality." Janei said with the finality of a death sentence.

"Thank you for the introduction, Bondsman," Master Executor Tomoe said after a short delay, which made it obvious someone was listening to the radio broadcast. "For the record, you may want to make sure your radios are not set on GUARD broadcast when you are explaining to your allies what is about to go wrong."

"Oops, my bad," the Radio Operator said meekly. He had not realized he activated two-way radio commo as well as the incoming signal.

"The other two who fall under the Bondsman's listing of persons who can understand the past and the future, both are ironically named Erich Hess, a bloodheritage of German Mercenaries. One is my husband and a Final Executor, higher rated than I am, and contributed a rifle to this campaign. The other Hess is better known as Sigma One, the leader of an interdimensional mercenary force; he contributed several companies of expatriate mercs who volunteered for this job."

"And I contribute fifty-five Galaxies to the war effort, or two Legion formations by the numbers," Empress Atrebas noted. "So, we've started our part of the campaign by way of a telefrag. Rear Admiral Badgiruel, how do you want this to end for what remains of your fleet?"

"Standby one," Natarle answered before she hit her kill switch for the radio. "All right, Admiral Sutherland, what do you say?"

"No way we can outrun that kind of ship, and nowhere to hide from it. I thought dealing with five pissed-off mixed galaxies of enemy forces was bad, but now we're up to 60 galaxies of forces. That kind of force is not something the entire planet of Earth could resist — not for long, at least. Your recommendation, Janei?"

"Take a term of bond, quickly, and don't think twice about it. If the Empress is offering you a chance to walk away alive, you can consider it a gold-plated opportunity," Bondsman Janei said. "The alternative, of course, is let the _Golden Phoenix_ use this ship as target practice."

"Like hell I'll surrender to them!" the _Ophanim_ Weapons Officer half-shouted.

"Your call. Just ask a Marine nicely to borrow one of their knives, I am sure the Marines will bid amongst themselves for the opportunity to provide you the blade necessary to remove yourself from the gene pool," Bondsman Janei said in jest.

"Or I can remove you from the gene pool!" The Weapons Officer drew a sidearm and leveled it at the Bondsman. "This is our world! Our blue and pure world!"

A single shot from a pistol somewhere else on the bridge caused everyone to jolt, but it was not from the weapons officer. Everyone could see him jolt slightly from the hit, but nobody could easily tell where he took the shot. A second shot rang out, this time the wound was visible in the center of the Weps officer's chest. The third round landed next to the second, and with it his body began spurting blood at a significant pace while it free-floated toward the rear bulkhead of the room. The Blue Cosmos supporter was clinically dead before his body made it to the rear wall of the bridge, where the radio officer compressed a shop cloth over the gunshot wounds and duct-taped the body to the wall so it would not bounce around the bridge or bleed all over the equipment.

"This was your world," Commodore Higgins said before he holstered his pistol, smoking barrel and all. "Not any more. Blue Cosmos has killed itself, by invoking the wrath of a foe far larger than they could ever imagine."

"Time to surrender," Natarle said. "I wonder if they allow leniency in bondsman placement?"

-x-x-x-

(9 April CE 73, 2100 Hours UTC)  
>(Warship <em>Mjolnr<em>, in orbit around Luna)

Star Admiral Centara had decided a bit of relaxation was in order after the bitch of a day he had suffered so far. Of course, definitions of 'relaxation' differed from one officer to the next, so...

The one standing mystery of the hour was what had arrived at the Pirate Point. Undoubtedly, Gerald had seen it coming and been ready to ambush whatever jumped in, but the question remained: who found them?

"Ai, what is the estimate of forces available to respond to a Siberian landing?" Wayne asked after a moment.

"Sir, at this time of year?" The Artificial Intelligence entity asked indignantly. "The nasty weather will cause more environmental casualties than the Earth Alliance could expect to reap."

"Good point," Wayne redecided. "Okay, the problem becomes we need a landing spot somewhere in Eurasia that we can sortie from, that has good air fields, and that isn't in ready reaction areas."

"You're looking in the wrong area," JADE noted. "Here are a dozen airfields, all no less than 70 minutes from any base in mainland China. We could land and offload the entire Galaxy of 'mechs before they can find both arse-cheeks with appropriate hands."

"Good point again," Wayne groused in frustration at himself. "This is a secondary operation, though; our primary objective remains the diamond of North America," Wayne traced a small diamond in the heart of North American territory that was the first phase of his plans.

"And those plans just went into hyperdrive while you were busy looking for a hidden runway," Strategic Officer Weste said from the doorway to the stateroom.

Wayne regarded his Strategic Officer for a moment, then decided a little bit of 'interrogation' was in order. "You're looking a bit chuffed. What is the news?"

"What if I said you are about to increase your forces tenfold?" she asked.

"You're dodging the question, Calamira," Wayne noted. "And, while I would love to increase my…" Wayne let the sentence trail off, wondering why Calamira was now smiling. "Okay, this is either a wildly bad joke or the party bus just dropped by. Which?"

"Ai, left-side monitor, please," Calamira stepped into the room so the door would close. "The news is starting to cycle around the ship, but best you see it for yourself." Calamira swiped the screen to a much wider magnification in one gesture, which demonstrated the space gap between Terra and Luna nicely.

It also revealed something that Wayne wanted answered, and alternately did not want answered. "Oh yeah," Star Admiral Centara said with a widening smile after the thought began sinking in. "Oh hell yeah. And, that explains why you're so happy. The _Golden Phoenix_ was the ride you were on before you capped that one maggot Star Admiral. Your team never left that ship, and I'll bet they didn't leave when this mission came up."

"Yeah, I finally get to reunite with my Triangle! And, more to the point, you get to reunite with an old nemesis of yours, and we get a shitload of forces to do this job," Calamira gushed, which Wayne considered wildly unusual behavior for the otherwise even-keeled Strategic Officer.

"Aye, one stone kills whole flock of birds; film at eleven," Wayne played the joke for points.

"Oh, damn, though, I don't have quarters suitable for the three of us," Calamira realized, then deflated. "And I can't leave my post on this ship."

"Nor they on the Big Yellow Bird," Wayne reminded her. "Strategic Psionics are assigned to the _Phalanx_-class ships for a reason. On the other hand, close does count for you three, and this war will not last too long. Okay, time for some serious R&R, now, screw the planning. Ai, listing of all forces in this Task Force Golden Roulette."

The monitor converted from map to force bracket. "Fourteen galaxies of armor forces, a nice spread from conventional ground armor to Gundams, three galaxies aerospace assets, and 38 galaxies various Infantry forces. Combined with our somewhat-depleted forces, you're talking three mid-size Legions. That is an absolute fuckload of forces," Wayne said with shock to tone after he grasped the totality of what he was coming to command. "I note the overall ops command is the Empress. Does she intend to take command here?"

"I don't know," Calamira admitted. "They'll be in range to talk here shortly."

Wayne sat down and sighed. "This is a day I have dreamed of, and silently dreaded just the same," he admitted. "In millennia past, it was said of the Admiralty, 'they who turn their forces upon an enemy stronghold are master and fool all at once; the master of war, but the fool of politics and diplomacy.' Today, we now have the forces to prove them right. And all I can think after seeing Mendel II destroyed is 'damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead'. Am I making sense?"

Calamira snorted at Wayne's questioning of his own policies. "The Americans had a rather blunt definition for 'politics', in that they consider the etymology of the word to be 'poly'—ergo, many of something, and —'tics', or little annoying blood-sucking arachnids that are far more trouble than their weight would allude to. Hence, many blood-sucking monstrosities makes for politics. And that is why the Old Emperor eschewed politics in the traditional sense, for honor and life as we know and exercise it. And, by the way, the guy that wrote your quote about the Admiralty, Star Admiral Hanse Yuu Nodoskyy, graduated last in his class at the academy and made it to the top by finding gay officers and sucking their dicks for profit. Literally sucking their dicks, mind you. The present persons on the Admiralty Board are more skilled than he was. You can probably guess why his most famous quote is all about pimping diplomacy over a righteous assbeating."

"Now that is a history lesson," Wayne said. "Why didn't they teach that kind of stuff in school when I was in?"

"Beats me," Calamira said in half-lie. She knew the overarching cause, but she did not know the underlying reason for it.

"I guess, then, time to get off the wussy side of the bench and get to real work. I did make it an official Annihilation, so…"

**Author's Chapter Afterword**:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I welcome you all to the War Wagon, which has summarily replaced the Party Bus on this handbasket tour of the shores of Hell.

First, I believe it is appropriate to mention that this is the first chapter in a sodding lot of warfare to come. Earth is a significant planet, and the Magi now have a significant amount of forces to drop on it, as well as a whole 'nother Phalanx-class ship to deploy naval bombardment. That reminds me, in coming sections you will get to see the effects of Suborbital fire on a planet, in all their glory, majesty, and wanton destruction. Much as in prior chapters and my other stories, there shall be no sugar-coating the events to come. Stomachs may turn from what you read.

Second, you read the numbers right on what the Empress brought with her. 55 Galaxies of forces total. Remember in the first chapter of Flight JW, where I explained the rank structures? Consider that a Century of forces (3 or more Galaxies) is considered 'a bit much' for one planet in some cases, and Legion formations (3 or more Centuries) are never used on one planet. Now, Wayne intends to drop all three Legions on Terra, add piss and vinegar, stir vigorously, and let simmer for as long as it takes. For the Earth Alliance, survival will be considered optional and discouraged. This, as Executor Tomoe intends, is deliberate; the reason for her intention shall be revealed in the next chapter.

Now, some of you are wondering why you saw the Destroy here before you saw the Zamza-Zah or the Gells-Ghe. Do not fear, those projects are farther along than the Destroy systems and may still make a showing. The Destroy was in such a wildly pathetic state of repute because its scheduled deploy was first quarter CE 74; present timing is (early) second quarter CE 73. As pointed out in the section, most of the Destroy Frames were not even complete, and the one machine the Lieutenant took out was the one that could be reasonably expected to do battle, if temporarily. Of course, thanks to a certain die-hard point of Marines, the Destroy did not last long before the Armored Marines displayed the stunning power of a swarm attack.

And then there is the midget brigade versus the Drake. Never fear, there is logic to my assertions on that battle. One: the Drake was incapable of maneuver, which made it a perfect stationary and big target. Nothing like shooting at a 130-meter-long sitting duck, after all. Two: the only notable weapon system the Drake has capable of targeting the Battle Armor was the forward deck gun. Oops. Three, and this falls back on the numbers game inherent to Battletech when governing SEED forces, the armor on the Drake is thin. If a GINN can expect to silence a Drake with the 76mm and not do anything fancy to ensure the kill, a Martell Medium Laser is more than adequate to the task. More to the point, since SEED units are not engineered to resist energy weapons (Exception: Archangel and Minerva, and some rare Mobile Suits), the damage from energy weapons is doubled. 5 point Medium Laser blasts become ten-point damage hawks, and each 10 points standard damage makes for 1 point capital (warship) damage. In theory, it is numerically possible for the same Stormjaeger unit to destroy a stationary and disarmed Phalanx-class ship, but (assuming average gunnery) it would take the same 20 troopers roughly 800 BT turns, or some 2 hours 13 minutes of unharassed fire.

And that is my major notes for the story for the day.

On the writing front, I am on technical hiatus for the next 3 weeks, to finish preparations to resume Archangel's Amazing Adventures and to complete some prep tasks for my other stories. I will have a helluva surprise for you all when the new year starts up on that note! Stay tuned, and enjoy this early Christmas present, for shit shall get real in the new year 2014!

At this point, I need say nothing else.

**NEXT UP**: The _Mjolnr_ and _Golden Phoenix_ consolidate, while things are set into motion on Terra that shall drive matters well beyond the reasonable control of certain parties…

**Review Replies**: I have a new policy for Review Replies; some of my Betas may do replies if they think it warranted. These will be in addition to my own musings.

Sieben Nightwing: Hope you had as much fun beta reading this one as I did writing it!

Hellhound D O W: This is just the first hammering of what threatens to be a long and bloody war.

On the Jade Falcons, stay tuned. The Falcons and the Arzachel Bondsmen may be working together…

Korraganitar the NightShadow: Damn good the Emperor approves! Hope this first chapter on the long bloody road was up to your expectations!

FraserMage**:** Hey, Sieben here. I've got to say I agree that it was a shame they didn't fit OmniMechs with Space Maneuvering Packs, though those are both complex and expensive at the scale needed. However, the solution will show itself in due time. Also, on the Mad Minute, you are correct. The record, however, is not 38 shots, but 38 Hits.

From Stravag: I am not at all surprised that Nicholas may have dropped those bombs. While the Clans raise him up on an altar, I consider that the man was probably not completely on the level. That's also why the Magi are not full-blown Clan-copies, because the Old Emperor knew exactly what manner of nightmare administering and progressing with that would be.

The U / US variant machines will start showing up probably in the 3rd Set of JW. Remember, that tech did not exist among the old-world Magi, so I can't use it here without phasing it in properly.

Drakensis: These things are as the dice commands, and as pointed out early in this chapter, the numbers game was against Mendel. Can't win 'em all. Hope this chapter adds more to the brutal fighting quotient.

Fire Miner: Nanomachines cannot be used to correct radiation poisoning by cleaning the radiation out, but they can be used to repair damage at a cellular level.

Biggie 1447 AND ANON: Your point is very valid, but keep in mind that the _Montgomery_ is a very old ship, designed before the days of having an entirely internal bridge. Newer ships and anything to be produced by Mendel shall not have that weakness.

Richard 3976: Thank you for the first review and welcome to the party! If at any time you have questions, feel free to PM me. I am always willing to clarify and point you toward source material.

c0dy88: I hope this is clustered enough for you, amigo.

Nialos: Thank you for the review! Good point on the SMLE magazine, but I note that it is indeed removable; I have one Enfield and several spare mags, though unloaded. The springs in the SMLE aren't designed for long-duration loaded storage. You are correct on the primary method of reloading, of which I have several dozen stripper clips for the Enfield. Helluva lot of firepower.

On the consideration of AAA and MMC / JW being in the same timeline, yes and no. Yes, in that I consider all of my stories to be part of the same Existence, but connected only inasfar as I directly or indirectly show. No, in that the timeframe of AAA is way separate from the timeframe of JW or the MMC. It's a technical thing, and there will be more lesson on this matter as AAA and JW advance.

**THANK YOU ALL FOR THE REVIEWS**! Adding fuel to the fire is always a good thing, and I love the smell of let fuel in the morning :)

**The Gripe Sheet**: There is one technical issue at hand with the Warships, but the author would like to point out that the concept of an outside-visible bridge held on in shipbuilding circles until just before the end of the Star Empire Wars, which postdated all seven of the Magi ships in deploy in the story. Ships produced after the Star Empire Wars have internal bridges more akin to a submarine than a traditional capital ship.

As always, much thanks to my beta readers **Necroblade**, **Takeshi**, **Sieben**, and **Malk**.

**Footnotes**:

(1): The **Summoner** Omnimech has the Inner Sphere reporting name of **Thor**. So known for its lightning-fast striking ability and hard-hitting arsenal, especially the Prime and D variants which utilize significant autocannons.

(2): Battletech game rules: coilguns / Gauss Rifles and variant weapons, when struck by a direct hit to the weapon, will explode in a fashion akin to an ammo explosion. This is representative of the charge power contained in the massive electrical systems used to power the weapon.

**TRO Section**: Woody described it, the Magi used it, now you see how it is built like a freaking brick outhouse. The Iron Golem stomps in today!

**BattleMech Technical Readout**

Type/Model: Iron Golem IGX-49A  
>Tech: Mixed Tech  3060  
>Config: Biped BattleMech<br>Rules: Level 3, Standard design

Mass: 80 tons  
>Chassis: Arc Industrial Assault Endo Steel (C)<br>Power Plant: 320 TelStar XL Fusion (C)  
>Walking Speed: 43.2 kmh  
>Maximum Speed: 54.0 kmh  
>Jump Jets: None<br>Jump Capacity: 0 meters

Armor Type: Hessian Systems HardCase W. CASE Hardened

Armament:  
>3 Holy Magic Tech "Long Hand" ER Medium Lasers (C)<br>1 EMRG "Captain" Series Gauss Rifle (C)  
>1 Winters Max Fire LRM 10 (C)<br>1 Winters Broadsword SRM 4 (C)  
>1 Hessian Systems Commadant Improved C³ CPU (IS)<p>

Manufacturer: Arc Hvy Industries  
>Location: Arc 54<br>Communications System: Hessian Systems TalkBack  
>Targeting &amp; Tracking System: Hessian Systems Deadeye w. C3I<p>

==Overview:==

While most companies hauled back on their military programs during the Star League, a few pragmatic companies continued pushing the arts of mechanical warfare. Inevitably it would be the pragmatic ones proved correct by history, which made their continuing practice of the mechanized warfare arts just that much more valuable to the Magi.

The Iron Golem Siege 'Mech was a product of one such project, and catapulted Arc Heavy Industries to overnight fame and prominence for assault 'mech manufacturing. With the orders coming in during the first months of the Quarter War, AHI cemented its position as one of the premier manufacturers of what the Magi needed for their 'vengeance grand mal' campaign.

==Capabilities:==

The Iron Golem was built from the outside in, unlike the common construction method of building a 'mech from the structure out or around a particular weapon system. Given the machine's focal point was armor, armor, and more armor, cramming the necessary components into a designated shell became the engineering challenge.

The initial engineering designation for the machine was 27 tons of hardened armor, no less. This challenge made for an extremely survivable platform, but became the challenge of determining how to balance such a massive amount of armor against the required engine and some manner of useful weapons load. Rather than spending massive amounts of capital to engineer and field a new build of Hardened armor, Arc reached out to another major weapons manufacturer, Hessian Weapons Systems, and licensed their HardCase armor system to do the job. With the major ground-up engineering challenge off the table, creating the plating distribution became far simpler for the design team.

The second challenge became the engine and structure. With the armor dictating the internal spaces, the first decision to be made revolved around how much engine could be spared. Given the prevailing attitude among the Empire's forces revolved around a minimum ground speed of 50 kilometers per hour, the lightest engine that could be used while suffering the running-speed reduction inherent to hardened armor would be a 320-rated Engine. Several companies made bids on engines for the unit, including Hessian, but in the end the TelStar 320XL was chosen for the project. Sitting behind 13.5 tons of armor on the torso, the engine and body of the Iron Golem is better armored than many Omnimechs in their entirety.

To hold the components in place, it was initally planned that a reinforced structure would be used, but the primary structure had to be scrapped due to mass constraints - using a Reinforced structure would have left a total of 15 tons for weapons components, a wholly unacceptable figure for Assault 'mechs in Magi parlance. Instead, the use of an Endo Steel skeleton manufactured at home by Arc Industries provided the necessary structure and left a total of 28 tons available for weapons, munitions, and heat sinks.

Before any major weapons components were decided on, the electronics suites literally walked in the door to the manufacturing plant. Hessian Systems beat out the other companies to the bidding process by way of delivering a trial set of systems for Arc Industries to use on the prototype machine. So impressed with the electronics, the engineering team stenciled the commo and targeting systems in, as well as dropped in the Hessian Systems Talkback C3i box that was quickly gaining credence among the Empire's forces for combined-arms action. It would be several decades before any of Hessian's competition realized what had gone wrong, and other electronics manufacturers began following suit with other companies.

Paradoxically, it would be the arsenal and cooling system that came last in the design process, but for good reason. With the production budget already being chewed up by outside vendors, the procurement department turned to a pair of lesser-known arms manufacturers who were willing to cut Arc Heavy Industries in at bargain-bin prices on high quality equipment. Winters Manufacturing turned out the LRM-10 and SRM-4 missile systems used in the left torso, from their 'Max Fire' LRM systems and 'Broadsword' SRM systems lines, a fortuitous business decision given their ruggedness and reliability exceeded some other megacorporations' products. After the early front-line successes of the Iron Golem under very abusive conditions, the Magi Quartermaster corps would begin heavy investment in Winters Manufacturing for OEM repair parts.

The trio of ER Medium Lasers in the Iron Golem came from a similarly unheard of OEM weapons manufacturer that mostly marketed to small-time mercenary units. Holy Magic Tech Industries, a pretentiously-named engineering firm with a penchant for quality optics products, provided the inital run of lasers from their 'Long Hand' series of ER Lasers. With quality equal to the sine qua non manufacturer of laser weapons (Optifree Laser Technology) and significantly lower price, Arc settled on their weapons and signed the contract without a second thought. One laser is in the left and right torsos, and the third is in the head to the left of the 'faceplate' of the cockpit; this latter laser is double-shielded and has a higher-strength cooling jacket to prevent overheating the inside of the cockpit.

The last weapon added to the machine was conversely the cheapest of the systems for Arc to acquire. Rather than bidding externally for the Gauss Rifle that makes the Iron Golem a long-range survivable powerhouse, Arc decided to clone the Clans' EMRG 'Captain' Series Gauss Rifle, as it was an open-design technology and required no licensing fees or external purcase contracts. Though a bit bulkier than the newer Xigon or Hessian Systems Gauss Rifles, the EMRG 'Captain' fit snugly into the machine's right torso with three tons of ammo and no questions asked.

If there was any one major design compromise to the Iron Golem, it would be the cramped internal systems. Initially, technicians who received the Iron Golem for repairs did not like the space constraints posed by the unique engineering process used, but once the Star League 'cobwebs' were dusted off the Empire's armies and force lethality began increasing, it was found that less and less machines required internal repair because an attacking force often didn't survive long enough to cause that much damage to an Iron Golem. This eventually led to a certain level of fondness for the Iron Golem, in that Hessian HardCase Armor was reasonably easy to repair or replace in the field.

On the other hand, the engineers knew this machine would likely outlast its ammo reserves, so the six tons total ammo were slotted into easily-loaded magazines that required only a quick unlatch of the two empty or partial magazines, and a cargoframe to reload them. During the height of the Quarter War, it became standard practice for a star of Iron Golem 'mechs to eject their magazines roughly 500 meters away from the FARP station and walk into the loading bay with open hatches for a quick load; if a professional crew was on hand, the entire unload / reload process could be done in as little as 150 seconds.

==Battle History:==

Initially, the first couple deployments of the Iron Golem were tactically rocky, but combatively excellent. Commanders who were not fully aware of the nature of this new beast tended to lump it in with standard Omnimech assault forces, which both put too much credence on mobility and firepower, and not enough stock into its defensive characteristics. Several officers derided its lack of mobility as a hindrance, until one arrogant Star Captain abandoned a pair of his Iron Golems and their pilots to conduct a fast-assault campaign with more conventional Omnimech forces. While the other units were off gallivanting through enemy rear lines, the Iron Golems went searching for fresh meat of their own. When the Star Captain's raid went down the drain, his 'abandoned' Iron Golems (which had thus far accounted for a lance of Heavy 'mechs on their own in the interim) moved to the enemy front line and literally chopped an evacuation corridor for the remainder of their binary by way of destroying another heavy lance and damaging two medium lances - the remaining Dark Moon forces retreated and later told tales of seemingly-indestructible Magi assault 'mechs on the move. This one battle became the case study for the effective employment of the Iron Golem, in 'siege' actions against other heavy forces in concentration where mobility is less of a ffactor than survivability and firepower. The doctrine would be proved later in the same week as a full star of Iron Golems were turned on a static fortification and guarding company of mixed medium/heavy 'mechs, with 8 turret defense structures and 10 of the 12 'mechs destroyed at the cost of only one Iron Golem.

The Iron Golem would continue to serve throughout the remainder of the Star Empire Wars and into the future, a stalwart of direct siege actions wherever the Magi conducted battle. Continuous upgrades to electronics, weapons, and even the armor shrell have rendered it a continual success story when used properly and in its intended role of heavy-hitting siege platform.

==Variants:==

Because of the then-unique engineering challenges and processes of the design, modifying the Iron Golem is an extremely dicey affair. For the length of the Qarter War, the only common modification was a field mod to remove 1 ton of LRM ammo or 1 ton of Gauss ammo and replace it with an extra ER Medium laser (or, occasionally, a salvaged old-world Medium Laser if no Clan-pattern Medium lasers were available). Sometime after the end of the war, a -B variant machine was released, which removed the SRM-4 launcher and associated ammo bin to replace it with another ER Medium Laser and an extra Double Heat Sink, though this variant is more rare by far because of the special munitions capabilities of the SRM launcher outweighing the extra laser.

==Notable 'Mechs & MechWarriors:==

'Barnacle' Betty Gouke

'Barnacle' Betty served as a mercenary in the famed Sigma Mercenaries for over 25 years, but gained her namesake in her rookie year on an unusual Sigma trans-dimensional contract. Hired by 1942 Britain to deal with the Nazi submarines in the French deep-water port of La Rouchelle, she decided she could do it with just one lance of 'Mechs and hers in the lead, given her 'mech drafted less depth than the German warships that normally moored there. Her team was inserted into the ocean some miles west of the target zone, at the outermost edge of the Bay of Biscay and due south of Brest. The march to the target area took her team nearly 40 hours of dodging enemy mines and patrols, but when she arrived it was with toal surprise. Despite fighting an enemy in the water, the Kriegsmarine was wildly unprepared to handle an attack from mercenary 'mechs, much less the monstrous Iron Golem that shrugged off German 88mm cannon fire with hardly a scratch of damage and was effectively impervious to lesser arms. Not only did her lance count a stunning coup of 14 German U-boats, they also scratched 9 patrol boats, 2 frigates, a destroyer, and cripped a cruiser. The lance was recovered inland from La Rouchelle by a waiting Dropship and was spirited back to England where the team arrived to a hero's welcome.

==Deployment==

In common practice, the Magi will deploy the Iron Golem in homogenous Stars of Siege-capable 'mechs, capitalizing on the inherent damage tolerance of the design for all it is worth. After the initial lessons of the platform, it is specifically not employed in the fast-attack role, mainly because it is not designed for speed.

A not uncommon configuration is a pair of Iron Golems for middle-of-the-road combat purposes, a Dondasch Assault Mech for heavy close-in work, and either missile-based or cannon-based long-range combatants to take advantage of the three siege 'mechs closing up to short ranges. A crowd favorite of this tactic is the 2AC variant of the Atmaweapon fire support 'mech, where the Dondasch or Iron Golem can get in close and use its C3i to coordinate effective long-range firepower from the Atmaweapon's four Gauss Rifles. Done properly and with skilled pilots, it is not unheard of for this combination of 2 IG, 1 Don, and 2 Atmas to eradicate an entire company of enemy 'mechs in less than 2 minutes with minimal or no losses to themselves.

* * *

><p>TypeModel: Iron Golem IGX-49A  
>Mass: 80 tons<br>Construction Options: Fractional Accounting

Equipment:  
>(Crits, Mass)<p>

Int. Struct.: 122 pts Endo Steel (C)  
>(7, 4.00)<p>

Engine: 320 XL Fusion  
>(10, 11.25)<br>Walking MP: 4  
>Running MP: 5<br>Jumping MP: 0

Heat Sinks: 13 Double (C) [26]  
>(2, 3.00)<br>(Heat Sink Loc: 1 RL)

Gyro: (4, 4.00)

Cockpit, Life Supt., Sensors: (5, 3.00)

Actuators: L: Sh+UA+LA+H R: Sh+UA+LA+H (16, 0.00)

Armor Factor: 218 (C) (0, 27.25)

Internal Structure / Armor Value:  
>Head: 3, 9<br>Center Torso: 25, 40  
>Center Torso (Rear): 5<br>L/R Side Torso: 17, 27/27  
>LR Side Torso (Rear): 5/5  
>LR Arm: 13, 24/24  
>LR Leg: 17, 26/26

Weapons and Equipment  
>Loc, Heat, Ammo, Crits, Mass<p>

1 ER Medium Laser (C)  
>RT, 5, 0, 1, 1.00<p>

1 Gauss Rifle (C)  
>RT, 1, 24, 9, 15.00<br>(Ammo Locations: 3 RT)

1 ER Medium Laser (C)  
>LT, 5, 0, 1, 1.00<p>

1 LRM 10 (C)  
>LT, 4, 24, 3, 4.50<br>(Ammo Locations: 2 LT)

1 SRM 4 (C)  
>LT, 3, 25, 2, 2.00<br>(Ammo Locations: 1 LT)

1 Improved C³ CPU (IS)  
>CT, 0, 0, 2, 2.50<p>

1 ER Medium Laser (C)  
>HD, 5, 0, 1, 1.00<p>

CASE II Equipment (C):  
>1, 0, 0, 0.50<br>(CASE II Loc: 1 LT)

TOTALS:  
>23 Heat<br>64 Criticals Used  
>80.00 tons mass<p>

Crits & Tons Left: 14, 0.00

**Calculated Factors**:

Total Cost: 20,027,191 C-Bills

Battle Value: 2,120 (+278 for C³)  
>Cost per BV: 9,446.79<p>

Weapon Value: 5,556 / 5,556 (Ratio = 2.62 / 2.62)  
>Damage Factors: SRDmg = 43; MRDmg = 28; LRDmg = 11<p>

BattleForce2: MP: 4, Armor/Structure: 5/5  
>Damage PBM/L: 6/5/2, Overheat: 0  
>Class: MA; Point Value: 21<p>

Specials: c3i


	10. The Sound Of A Nightmare

(Flight Of The Jokers Wild, Chapter 10: The Sound of a Nightmare)

(9 April CE 73, 1130 Hours Lima (UTC-5))  
>(Atlantic Federation, Old United States Territory, Highway 75 Northbound, Rest Stop)<br>(Coordinates: 37° 2'33.80"N, 84° 5'47.44"W)

"Sorry, kid, not much that Mendel can do to pull your arse out of the fire today," the BC Lead transporter noted. "Orb, though very magnanimous, they are not going to get in on this one. That leaves you out in the cold, unless you want to go for the even more improbable scenarios like the USSA or Equatorial?"

"No, thank you," Kira muttered. "I think I'll just eat this and keep my peace."

For Kira, there had been precisely one spot of hope for him since the shuttle was hijacked some four days ago. After Lacus had been separated from himself and loaded into a separate transport convoy, he had seen the very faint, flickering outline of a Ghost climb into one of the cargo trucks and take position behind the freight inside. If that was the case, then at least Lacus would make it out of this nightmare alive. That much of a change from his personal dread scenario was enough to make his own fate bearable. Better himself than Lacus, such as it would be.

So far as he could guess, the convoys had diverged somewhere north of Mexico City, with his escort bound for Nova Scotia, and Lacus bound for a safe-house somewhere in Wyoming, so far as he could tell. Maybe not that far north, but certainly not with him. Effectively, the BC Lead was right. There was no hope for him in this case, since Blue Cosmos still had the overwhelming advantage of numbers and firepower except against Mendel. Even if some of the EA-internal rebel groups knew where he was, they could likely do little to help.

On the other hand, at least they weren't feeding him dogshit sandwiches, which he thoroughly expected but was pleasantly surprised to not receive. There was something to be said for dealing with professionals — they treated him like a proper prisoner, but there would be little chance of escape. A salami sandwich and some cheetos reminded him of his childhood on Luna, of lunchtime and recess during his days of Lunar Prep School. Not a bad memory by any stretch of the imagination, and certainly better than the thoughts running around in his head right now.

"Not a bad day for a long drive," the BC cargo truck driver noted. For Lacus, they only had three in-close guards. "Weather's supposed to be down below freezing up toward Maine, though. That'll complicate things."

"We'll live," the Lead answered.

"Do we want to do the old Penn Turnpike, or do we want to cut south of it, along 70 to 76?" the driver asked.

"Screw 'em both," she said heartily. "Either of those puts us trying to wrap around the hell-hole formerly known as New York City. I say we shoot up to Cleveland and cut across the spine of New York, avoid the whole NYC mess entirely. Traffic even on the highways around the Big Apple is a nightmare."

"Okay, we run up 75 until we get to Cleveland, then across — " His sentence was cut short by a classic nightmare of every soldier. A bullet struck him in the back while he was drinking milk from a carton, punched through his back and his front, and even blew through the carton of milk he was (briefly) holding.

A second round struck the Lead in the face, cratered part of her cheekbone, and splattered her skull and its innards all over the table behind her. The blood and brain matter caused a family picnic to abruptly end in screaming and terror, but to Kira it was a sign that something very bad was now going down.

Kira's instant reaction was to dive under the table, in the hopes that whoever was doing the (silent) shooting was after BC and not just a horribly bad shot in trying to drop him. From where he was, he could see the remainder of the BC escort squad stand up and begin searching, weapons raised in the general firing direction, but there was no enemy combatant visible. A driver nearby the second BC truck went down from a sniper's hit, her chest splattered all over the side of a white minivan by the unseen and unheard shooter.

"Good fucking God! Where are they?"

"I can't see 'em! I can't see 'em!"

"Allow me to help," a lady's voice said to the remaining BC men. The change was not overlong; Kira immediately saw the first flicker of a Ghost Cloak disappearing, confirming his earlier belief in Lacus' ride-along, and then a fully-armored Mendel Ghost Officer was visible to the entire world.

"FUCK ME!" The one BC Sergeant still surviving shouted as he brought his weapon to bear on her. Much as Kira had seen in simulation after simulation, an infantryman's assault rifle was a piss-poor implement to face off against the massive assault shield of a Mendel Armored Infantryman, or in this case a Mendel Ghost. He fired the entire forty-round magazine into the Ghost, but the paint even survived intact on her defensive implement.

The other five escort infantry tried doing the same, but against a different Ghost. The second one gave them not a whit of hesitation, she brought up a large sub-machinegun and swept it from left to right on their table, trigger held until the bolt slammed forward with no round in the chamber. All told, Kira guessed the magazine emptied into them was on the order of a hundred rounds, for the pile of brass on the ground was extensive and glittering in the sunlight of midday.

"Nice shooting, Tex," the Ghost much closer to Kira said sardonically.

"Payback for Mendel II," the shooter said even as she reloaded the heavily-suppressed sub-machinegun. "And payback can be a roaring bitch on days that end in 'y', is it not?"

"No arguing that," the nearby Ghost said. "Kira Yamato, need a hand up?"

"You didn't take any hits, right?" the shooter Ghost asked. Both were ladies, both he guessed older than him by a fair margin, and both had no shortage of weapons on their armor.

"I'm all right," Kira answered after a quick-check to make sure no ricochet rounds hand struck him. "Are they — "

"Got 'em all," the nearby of the two said. "Ghost Officer Xion, Mendel. We're here to extract you."

"And how?" Kira asked, even after he used Xion's hand to pull himself to standing. "We're in the middle of Kentucky in the old United States. How do we get out of here?"

"We get out of — OI!" the second Ghost officer had her sub-machine gun up again, but this time pointed at a teen-age girl nearby the bodies of the dead BC troops. "If you pick up that rifle and turn it on us, you will be in the morgue tonight in pieces, you follow?"

"EEEP!" She feigned innocence before she took the classic 'surrender' pose. "Don't shoot! I'm on your side! Anti-BC!"

"Anti-BC? Grab one, clear it, and pull one of their LBE (1) for ammo." the second Ghost waved her on.

"Anyway, can you drive?" Xion asked while she kept a wary eye on the girl and her boyfriend as they stripped the deceased for weapons and ammo. Much to the teen's declaration, they did pull the weapons and made a break for their vehicle with gear harnesses and rifles, what was salvageable.

"Yes, why?" Kira responded after a moment.

"Good." Xion used a pen laser torch to cut his handcuffs off. "You're the getaway driver, and the vehicle de rigeur is the same troop hauler they were dragging you north in," the second Ghost noted.

"And them?" he waved toward the deceased Blue Cosmos operators, now stripped of their arsenal.

"Screw 'em. They're too dead to do anything about our escape plan," Xion pointed out fairly.

"Grab her rifle and come on," the shooter Ghost indicated the rifle carried by the BC Lead, which Kira did pick up after a moment of hesitation. Curiously, the second Ghost stopped at the supply truck, not the troop truck. After a moment of looking at the contents, she pulled down a shipping unit of MRE meals and shoved it into the back of the troop truck. "We've got a haul ahead of us, so we'll need food."

"And fuel?" Kira asked.

"This is an alcohol-fueled truck. You can prolong the gas tank by diluting the mix with water, but we don't intend to drive all the way there," the second officer noted. "Name's Terra, by the way. Heard a lot about you, Kira. Damn good thing we were in a position to extract you."

"I'm not complaining, but my girlfriend was captured as well. We were separated; do you have any idea how we can rescue her?" Kira asked before he opened the door to the driver's seat.

"We can work on that once we're at a safe location. If she is still alive, we can find her." Xion had turned her cloak back on, but Terra climbed up into the load bed of the truck while still visible. "Get back on 75 and make the first possible u-turn to go south. We need to prevent an easy tail."

"Got it," Kira said before he started the engine up.

"Police," Xion said. "I have this one." She raised her rifle up, rested it on the brace-latch on her shield's edge, and sighted up. Before the patrolman in the car could put it in park or reach for the radio, she dropped a single shot through the window and into his chest. "Tango down. Move out, Kira."

"I hear you. And thank you for the rescue!"

"Don't thank me until your arse is tucked away at home, kid," Terra replied. "The day is young, and we just pissed off every Blue Cosmos swinging dick this side of the Mississippi river. Eventually, they will find out what went wrong and they will start looking for us."

-x-x-x-

(9 April CE 73, 2145 Hours Zulu)  
>(Crew Lounge, Warship <em>Dominion<em>, in stationary orbit at Lagrange Point One)

"The hell of it is, sir, we now have another monitor to add to the mix, _Ophanim_," Stella said tritely to Shani. The two of them had a dozen recon pictures laid out on a low table, examining the facilities pictured by the dropships _Forrestal_ and _Sailboat Reborn_. The impromptu intelligence and planning session was being done on a sofa in the crew lounge, since both pilots were technically off-duty.

"Heh, you don't 'sir' me, girl, you could probably kick my ass in close," Shani said with a smile. "You are right, though. Now we have a third, and we have the crew to man both the _Ophanim_ and the _Girty Lue_."

"It will be fun," Stella said with unusual cheer for the otherwise quiet and thoughtful girl. "And then there is the Big Yellow Bird."

"And the old hammer," Shani said. "We've got enough firepower to turn a lot of real estate into ash and crater. Won't matter though, because we need to rescue, not destroy the Extended facilities."

"Okay, here's my list," Stella said, getting down to the substance of their meet in the crew lounge. "I know of Lodonia, Mountain Home, Chihuahua. You?"

"Lodonia, Gloucester, Mountain Home. I thought there might be one in Kiev, but I don't really remember the conversation well," Shani said.

"I asked Auel, he didn't know of any others. Sting said there may be one in Afghanistan, the Tora Bora tribal region, but he didn't know if that was an EA base or LOGOS Extended."

"Clotho didn't know of any, and Oruga said he didn't know any more than what we already know. This can't be all of them," Shani said dejectedly. "I wonder…"

"Huh?" Stella asked.

"I know we intend to do recon by fire, but what about asking the higher-ups on the _Golden Phoenix_ if they can search."

"Shani, don't," Stella said. "I know they're our superiors, but — I just —"

"You're afraid asking them will invoke some form of wrath?" Shani asked. "We'll front it to Gerald first. We know he's not going to slay us for wanting this done completely, since he wants it done more than we do."

Stella sipped at a strawberry slushie that was partially melted from inattention. "So, we have six confirmed, seven possible, and maybe more if the search comes up with more. How do we do this?"

"We have three ships, now. Two of us Extended to a ship, and a compliment of other forces, and we just go facility by facility, kill them all and rescue the Extended drones," Shani answered coldly. The internal name inside the Extended Program for personnel was 'drones', though the Earth Alliance was slightly more forgiving with their title 'Biological CPU'. Either way, the terminology pointed to the expectation that the Extended were expendable; the Magi thought otherwise, and a Century Commander of the Magi was willing to put some horsepower on the line to prevent those expenditures.

"Once we're done with the Extended, we need to track down and capture or eliminate the members of LOGOS," Stella said. "We capture them, we can have them publicly executed for their crimes. And there's a bounty on their heads."

"If the _Archangel_-class ships are allowed to do that, I would," Shani nodded thoughtfully. "You know, we weren't supposed to live."

"We did live, in spite of it," Stella said with a hellish smile. "We lived because a band of interdimensional hardasses showed us what it means to live fast and loud."

Shani was not expecting anything more on that thought from Stella, but was significantly surprised by her next. When he reached down to an overhead picture of Mountain Home Extended Research Facility, he never got his hand on the picture before Stella wrapped him in a fierce embrace.

"Um, Stella?" Shani asked after a moment.

"We can't die, not until this is all over," she said. "We weren't supposed to survive, according to our slaveholders. If we live, or worse, if we give the Extendeds back their lives, LOGOS loses."

"I agree," Shani said. "We're alive, and shortly, they won't be." After a moment, Shani wrapped his arm around Stella's shoulders and pulled her closer.

Stella didn't notice a new entrant, but Shani saw a lady with pink hair and a guy wearing plain-jane grays enter the lounge. Given that the _Dominion_ was staffed by 35 percent ZAFT expatriates, he figured the pink hair was indicative of a Coordinator crewmember he hadn't seen so far, though the strange hair tufts she had in the fashion of 'twintails' with meatballs was an attention-getter. The guy he thought would be the Century Commander by build, but Gerald was on the _Golden Phoenix_, not on the _Dominion_ right now. The two new entrants grabbed a coffee from the concession vendor and took seat at one of the restaurant tables.

Shani decided he didn't want to disturb Stella or get her back on track, so he just stayed still. It was a good decision, all things considered; from the door opposite the room, Gerald Lightbringer entered less than a full minute after the two crewmembers (?) were seated. When he approached their table, both stood up, but it was the guy in the plain-jane uniform that had Shani's attention. The two, unknown guy, Century Commander, squared up to each other, took stance as if they were going to walk forward with rifles, and closed the gap. At the last moment, Gerald smiled heartily and the two reached across to shake hands in an exaggerated gesture.

"Damn good to see you, old friend," the unidentified guy said to Gerald.

"Damn glad to have you in for this one, Stan. It is by no stretch of the imagination a Commando job, but you know the policy on overkill just as well as I." Lightbringer turned to the lady with the pink hair. "Highness, thank you for sending relief, and once again, welcome to Cosmic Era Earth."

Shani still did not move or say anything, sensing more than else that Stella was close to falling asleep in his arms. More to the point, he had no intention whatsoever of drawing attention to himself while the Empress of the Magi, the Division Commander of the Commandos, and his direct superior (Lightbringer) were in the room. Even if he didn't visually recognize them, the name 'Stan' combined with a mid-twenties-looking lady with pink hair and a near-supermodel figure meant he was in the presence of Multimage royalty.

"This one's on Hotaru, actually. She knew exactly where you landed; Stan drew up an OrBat to bring along, and I'm just joy-riding for this campaign," the lady with the pink hair commented.

"Okay, I can see why Hotaru would know, but why would the Princess of Silence take any interest in this rag-tag fleet of misfits, degenerates, and psychos?" Gerald asked.

"It's a timing issue…" Rini Atrebas began the explanation. She would reprise it later for the rest of the Mendel command staff, but Gerald would hear a slightly different version.

And by extension so would Shani, who would tell that version to the other Extended pilots, which would create an echo in the coming history that would make things better for everyone in the future.

-x-x-x-

(10 April CE 73, 0630 Hours Zulu)  
>(Mendel Colony, Lagrange Point 4)<p>

"Bit of a small colony, but an interesting find," Star Admiral Minako Sahalin said with clear approval.

"A home for denizens who are tired of being pissed on while being told it is raining, and those who either want serious adventure or just want to be left alone," Century Commander Lightbringer said.

"Well, to those pukes who piss on this land, it is time to introduce them to our kind of rain. A steel rain," Captain Joachim Von Ursa said with a savage grin. "Helm, bring it in smartly next to the _Mjolnr_ and park it."

"Aye, Captain," the helmsman answered immediately.

"_Eisensturm_," Joachim said in his native language, German, still smiling. "One thing not covered so far, Century Commander. Do we have allies, or is this a case of international pariah taking the next whizz in an ongoing pissing match?"

"All of the above," Gerald answered. "We do have allies down on the planet, namely the United States of South America, and if I do not miss my guess, we have a stealth ally in the Kingdom of Scandinavia. You already know about ZAFT, they're on our side this time around, and Durandal is enough of a schemer to make it worth our time. Orb is somewhat schizophrenic at the moment, with the resumption of hostilities they have gone very quiet. At a guess, they're going to sit this one out."

"How very Swiss of them," Minako Sahalin said dryly.

"In their defense, the national population of Orb is 45 million, and they got corncobbed by the Earth Alliance in the last round. They have less than three full Clusters of mobile forces and maybe two galaxies tops of militia-grade forces. They can hold the Earth Alliance off their island chain, but not for long. In terms of doing anything useful this go-around, not likely."

"So, essentially, they make themselves look unimportant and unobtrusive, they don't get corncobbed again," Empress Atrebas said in summary. "Were I in their position, I would be thinking along the same lines, though actively I'd be using special assets to do the world a few favors."

"Who knows? They might just get off the pot rather than sitting there crapping about it," Gerald said, though his voice bespoke little hope for such a scenario. "Anyway, the two other major notables on planet are Equatorial and Oceania. Equatorial is probably going to go flat-neutral when the shit and the fan collide. By the numbers, they really don't have a dog in this fight, and they don't have any animus toward us."

"And Oceania?" Rini asked after a moment.

"Oceania, well, the Oceanian government has a hard-on for ZAFT. Where Durandal goes, so shall Adelaide. And my guess is ZAFT will officially throw in with us in the next day or two." Gerald folded his arms across his chest, staring out the front window into space. "If I would have cheated, Mendel II would still be —"

"Perish the thought," Empress Atrebas answered. "I put you in the Techstrikers for a reason, Gerald, and that came with certain restrictions that now apply more than ever. Not even Master Executor Tomoe would have had the right to do what you think you should have done. This is a different land, and different rules govern it. Watch your step." Rini was not referring to physical territories, per se, but jurisdictions at and above the level of Executors. Gerald had never been directly involved in pissing matches at the Executor level, but he had heard about them. Such clashes tended to depopulate and render uninhabitable whole worlds, but were thankfully very rare.

"Aff, my liege," Gerald answered tersely. "Is my original mission still operative?" he asked after a few moments of considering it.

"Yes and no," Rini said pensively. "Yes, the requirement is still in place. No, it will likely not be you doing the final coup de grace. I think, after the grievous insults and detriments laid upon the Task Force Jokers Wild, I believe they are become the perfect harbingers for the duty, don't you think?"

Gerald smiled after a moment of considering it, then began chuckling in a rather evil fashion. "I believe I intended to bring the _Mjolnr_ along as the tip of the spear, a haft of many ships all equally disenfranchised and ready to do something about it, but if what you say is right, maybe the _Mjolnr_ will get its crack after all in a few eons."

"A good way to think about it," Minako said. "We are committed; for us, there shall be no going back. There is only forward; unto glory, or unto the blade of an enemy's bayonet, only forward."

"We're not here to lose, Star Admiral," Rini said drolly.

"I know, Empress, but I always have to throw in a sop to Murphy. Poor bastard has been dead for tens of thousands of years, and his law still reigns supreme."

"Conn, Sensors, identified _Nelson_-class warship, contact designation Rodent-1, has reversed course and is now headed back to station Artemis," the Flight Boss for the Golden Phoenix declared.

"Sensors, Conn, aye," Captain Von Ursa answered. "Time until _Redland_ and _Absinthe_ intercept enemy fleet action headed to ZAFT territory?"

"Intercept 6 hours, sir," the Flight Boss said after doing some rough match on the subject.

"Nothing to happen for at least that long," CC Lightbringer said. "Wayne will certainly want to meet with everyone at the administration building. Do you have anything you need to wrap up here, Star Admiral?"

"Joachim, everything good to go?" Minako asked, since nothing came to mind of her own volition.

"Aye, milady Sahalin. We've got this."

"Time to head in, see the new home, such as it is," Minako Sahalin said. "Empress, will you be joining us?"

"Definitely," she said. "I have a few things to discuss with Star Admiral Centara."

-x-x-x-

(10 April CE 73, 1400 Hours Zulu)  
>(ZAFT PLANT Armory One, Lagrange Point 4)<p>

"Good afternoon, soldiers of ZAFT, citizens of the PLANT nations," Chairman Durandal began his speech. Today, he was speaking from a raised platform at the ZAFT National Training Center in Armory One, but the message would not be far from anything expected in any of the PLANTs. "The past thirty hours have seen some momentous changes in the battlescape that is evolving around us. The ZAFT Supreme Council is keeping abreast of these changes, and we would like to inform the populous of those major changes before we declare our intentions."

Durandal swiped his comp-tablet to the next page, where the highlights of Mendel's action were recorded and ready. "First, as of noon Zulu time yesterday, the moon is now in the possession of Mendel. The two major Earth Alliance bases, Ptolemaeus and Arzachel, have been captured mostly or completely intact. Mendel has already begun setting up shop in both bases and intends to use them as staging and maintenance facilities for the coming naval actions."

A quick cheer and longer clapping round came up from the ZAFT personnel for the victory. Durandal let it play out naturally, given the people were now rooting for the underdog with the severe attitude — Mendel — as they exacted vengeance for themselves and vengeance by proxy for ZAFT.

"A third Earth Alliance base on the moon was annihilated by antimatter strike, Daedalus Base, because that base held a functioning supermassive anti-colony particle weapon that was initially intended to be used against the PLANTs and Mendel. By forcing Blue Cosmos' hand on the Moon, Star Admiral Centara was able to force them to use the particle beam against the _Mjolnr_ as opposed to a colony. The damage to the ship was notable, but it is still in operation."

Again, more clapping, but shorter than the first round. Even if completely justified and very fast death to those in the blast radius, the wholesale annihilation of a base was no celebratory matter.

"During the consolidation phase of Mendel's lunar conquests, an escape fleet was sighted headed toward L1 and thereafter to Earth. Mendel decided that this fleet needed to be stopped and captured or eliminated to prevent recovery of ships and personnel expected to be elite, the Earth Alliance best from their Lunar facilities. Tasking for intercept was issued to Century Commander Lightbringer and ZAFT's Experimental Armaments Group Minerva. Our warship Minerva and the Century Commander departed lunar airspace 1115 Zulu, arrived at L1 roughly 1530 Zulu, and were in for a significant surprise. The footage you are about to see is from the Warship _Minerva_'s records of the events that unfolded at that time."

He, like everyone else at the presentation, turned to the large projection screen present. For the remote viewers, the shot of Durandal was PIP'd while the main view switched over to a spectacular view of space — which included a view of the Asgard shipyard station in the distance. The screen was of an enhanced take — the Earth Alliance fleet was highlighted in targeting brackets, showing that the ship was tracking and theoretically ready to fire on the Earth Alliance ships, regardless of how unsporting shooting a retreating foe would have been.

The first indicator that something was about to go wrong was the fleet's abrupt turn away from their course, or in the case of five ships, a hard accelerate away from the center of the fleet. After a few moments, the _Minerva_'s onboard systems targeted another object — highlighted and listed as 'magnetic anomaly'. Several seconds after that fateful listing, a plasma flare lit up space in that area — many viewers of the spectacle instantly recognized it from the tales of the Magi, who said a plasma discharge preceded the arrival of a Jumpship. Several more plasma flares emanated from the centroid of the anomaly, until at 1535 Zulu a full-size flare passed through the area and haloed the arrival of a massive Warship — another _Phalanx_-class ship, but this one was full-loaded with Dropships.

"Accordingly, this is not the only arrival, but the _Golden Phoenix_ is the big one. We counted four emergence pulses from ships that arrived at the Zenith Jump Point, signalling the arrival of four ships well outside the reach of the Earth Alliance. I have been informed by the Star Admiral that those ships are noncombatant transports, housing corporate parties and various adventurous civilians that came along for the journey. Their purpose is thus far unknown to ZAFT, but it is likely no detriment to anyone in the Earth Sphere."

Durandal shifted note page again. "A week ago, Star Admiral Centara declared a Trial of Annihilation against the Earth Alliance and related parties LOGOS and Blue Cosmos. As of yesterday afternoon, he now has the forces necessary to ensure the job is done." Again, he turned to the projection screen, which lit up with the combined OrBat Task Force Jokers Wild and Task Force Golden Roulette. "Sixty Galaxies of forces spread between two _Phalanx_-class ships, with escorts. That is, by the numbers, three Legion formations of the Magi, with a total projected combat manpower of 110,000 personnel and over 4800 armor units — Mobile Suits, Gundams, Battlemechs, and conventional ground armor. By the numbers, this does not sound like much in historical perspective; for example, the Battle of the Bulge in World War 2 involved over 600,000 troops on the Allies' side, and that was by far not the largest battle in the war. On the other hand, the Magi fight by a straightforward and lethal dictum of combat power multiplication that we've seen time and time again."

The screen and remote viewers were treated to some fresh battle footage from the cockpit of a Battlemech, looking out over Luna as fighters passed overhead and slammed ground targets and fortifications. The bomb strikes paled, though, when a line of cannon slugs walked across the ground, sending lunar stone spall and small clouds of dust into the air with each slug. There were some brief cheers from the ZAFT military personnel, seeing the threat of naval suborbital bombardment made real by Mendel, but those were short.

"Numerically, Mendel is outnumbered by the semi-official body count of Blue Cosmos, who declared themselves up to 200,000 strong around the globe. Count in the Earth Alliance regular military, and Mendel is easily outnumbered 6-to-1. On the other hand, this is a war dictated by Multimage policy and technology. These are men and women who train to eliminate enemy forces in numbers exceeding 3-to-1 battle odds. Their warships are capable of systematically erasing entire regiments of forces off the face of the planet below us — and Star Admiral Centara has already proved he will use them for suborbital bombardment. The Earth Alliance has no air force worth talking about, and has no air defense artillery system that can positively threaten Mendel's aerofighters; the skies by default belong to Mendel. The only thing the Earth Alliance has going for them is the sanctity of their lands, and that is a thin veil to warriors who have vengeance in their hearts and multi-ton armored units protecting them."

Again, the troops clapped long and hard, for both the battle footage from Luna and for the Chairman's apropos of the coming engagement.

"When the Earth Alliance started this second Bloody Valentine War, they did so by way of issuing a surrender ultimatum to both Mendel and ZAFT. Given both nations failed to adhere to the surrender, for obvious reasons, the Earth Alliance Senate declared war on us as well as Mendel. Accordingly, the PLANT Supreme Council has declared war on the Earth Alliance and associated parties. As we do not have the massive naval support options that Mendel has, it has been decided that we will offer our forces as Contract Bid to Mendel to augment their primarily Mechanized Armored Infantry forces with our armor and mobile warfare forces. Though negotiations on that note are still ongoing, we have already received multiple positive indicators for going forward with such a plan."

This time, Durandal could feel the cheering throughout the colony, much less throughout the PLANTs. ZAFT was officially in it, and would not be fighting at cross-purpose with Mendel. The latter would be the great worry to many, that they were duplicating effort or possibly even encroaching against a Trial of Annihilation by a Star Empire, generally considered serious business for all involved players. With the Contract Bid in effect, should it be ratified, ZAFT would operate in consort with Mendel forces and any territory primarily taken and held by ZAFT would be retained by ZAFT at the conclusion of hostilities.

"This war has only begun," Durandal cautioned his nation. "We have a long ways to go, and I can almost guarantee that some of the things you will see on the news wires shall not be pleasant. This is a war with nearly no rulebook. Mendel has thrown out 95 percent of their combat restrictions for this campaign; you can expect you will see blood and bodies in large quantities. Keep in mind, though, Blue Cosmos are no manner of saint, and those who have harbored, abetted, and nurtured them are far from angelic of their own right. Blue Cosmos has declared itself the arbiter of life and death over a Star Empire. They are about to find out exactly how foolhardy it is to tell millions of planets that they are not allowed to live. ZAFT joins in Mendel's effort to make sure that message is heard loud and clear, not just by Blue Cosmos, but by any party yet to be born that would so much as think loud about denying the right to live."

After thirty seconds of uproarious cheer, Durandal allowed himself a slight smile. He knew, with the will to defend their right to life to the utmost, that the ZAFT people were ready to begin on the journey to becoming a Star Empire of their own.

-x-x-x-

(10 April CE 73, 1400 Hours Zulu)  
>(10th Floor Conference Room, Mendel Administration Building, Mendel Colony, Lagrange Point 4)<p>

"So, the broad strokes are as follows: Phase one is landing, central United States, Central Asia, ZAFT in North Africa and Mideast, combined force in Europe. Phase two, consolidate landing locations, deploy ground fronts, and smash any gophers that pop up in our vicinity. Phase three, we move to take enemy key facilities and eliminate major fielded ground forces. Phase four, move on and capture enemy capital cities. Phase five is occupation, normalization, and abjuration of surviving Blue Cosmos personnel."

"Solid," Division Commander Agrippa said.

"Ambitious," Empress Atrebas mildly disagreed with her subordinate.

"It plays to our strengths," Wayne answered. "We have the technical advantages, and they have the bulk of their defenses facing the wrong way. They're expecting us to invade in limited terrain, peninsulas or islands to force defensive engagements in our favor, and move inward from there. They expect that per our own battle histories. It is rare that Magi troops hit an enemy by going for the heart first, and that is where I intend to start."

"Fava beans and a nice chianti included?" DC Agrippa asked after a moment. The question confused Wayne momentarily, but caused a laughing fit from Century Commander Lightbringer. "In all seriousness, I am not seeing any major fault with the plan. Ambition aside, the broad strokes will easily get the job done so long as your foe doesn't go full nuclear retard."

"If they do, we have five Antimatter shells for the rail guns on the _Mjolnr_, and the Earth Alliance has only three major capitals," Wayne reminded them. "Moscow for the Eurasians, DC for the Atlantic, and Heaven's Base for the military. If they nuke their own civilians in an attempt to get to us, I will erase their taint from the face of the planet and file the paperwork."

"Good to know you're on board with the proper policies in this kind of poker game," Stan said with a nod.

"Any comments, Hotaru?" Empress Atrebas asked her longtime friend.

"No, nothing major to point out right now, everything seems to be good across the board," the Master Executor of Silence answered after a moment.

"Okay, then, time to make the reasons here known to you, Wayne Centara, Gerald Lightbringer," Rini Atrebas stood up from her seat and began pacing. "Time for you to hear it straight up, for this whole scenario is a matter of timing. The battle that put the _Mjolnr_ here, in the Cosmic Era, was literally the first battle of Ragnarok."

"What?" Wayne half-shouted, on his feet at that thought. "How — who — why?"

"Do you think Loki's throngs are foolhardy enough to ignore the technology we have built? Or what Odin has done with Valhalla, making it a multi-purpose training ground for everything from sword-swingers to Omnimech Pilots? No, Loki is a vengeful bastard, but he is no tyro. He's seen the future of mobile warfare, and his mortal forces have embraced it to an unholy degree. Those Mobile Dolls you smashed and turned into easy salvage, that was a testbed for ways to kill off a _Phalanx_-class ship with a net zero expenditure of manpower."

"Welcome to Ragnarok, because you just put the good guys on the scoreboard," Hotaru picked up where Rini left off. "Now, with that thought ringing in your ears, push it to the back of your mind, Star Admiral. You may have won the vanguard match, but you personally will never have to fight another battle in Ragnarok again."

Her phrasing made the reasoning clear. "How far back are we?" Wayne asked after a moment of considering it.

"32,774 years back from where you stood," Stan answered. "Counting time differentials between the parallels, 72,429 years between now and when you shall be parallel to when you departed Magi space."

"Good Gods," Wayne said after he took a seat. "Seven eons from now, we will be parallel to when we left."

"_Hai_," Hotaru said. "As much as it would be wanton cruelty, you should easily understand why we did not consider extracting the _Mjolnr_, above and beyond the premise of the territory you have built and now fight to defend."

"Aye, Executor, that is now blatantly obvious," Wayne said somewhat derisively. "Seven eons unmolested by the other Star Empires, far out of everyone's sight, left alone and able to do the impossible. Other host nations with the balls to join us in the stars. All the technology of the Star Empires at our fingertips and more advances by the day. It is the perfect engineering job, done entirely by cosmic accident."

"You want us to become the shadow army of the living for the Battle of Ragnarok," Gerald said calmly.

"Indeed," Hotaru answered. "Ragnarok is a war that can be influenced by magic, but it cannot be won by magic. It can only be truly skewed in our favor by technology — the higher the tech, the better. You just saw the _sine qua non_ of Loki's technologies, the Mobile Doll. If you can build Mobile Forces capable of putting down hundreds of Mobile Dolls per one allied machine, and if you can build up infantry forces capable of slaying thousands of enemy infantry or similar targets in series, then we might be able to ensure something survives. This is the tao of winning Ragnarok: high technology to skew the odds, and numbers to level the field."

"And that makes us the next wave," Wayne completed the thought. "So, we need to consider that if we go home, we fight in Ragnarok and we lose, if we stay here, we don't fight Ragnarok but we're basically building 72,000 years of history for that purpose."

"That is the long and short of it," Division Commander Agrippa answered. "It's a bitch of a choice, but — "

" — But it's not as much of a bitch of a choice as it sounds on the face of it, Division Commander," Wayne countered. "First, it's the exact same decision the Old Emperor made long before we started using Jumpships to move between the stars. Second, when faced with the choice of live long and prosper like a bandit, versus die in a pointless blaze of mediocrity, self-preservation instinct is going to win through. Third, when you consider that Hotaru just gave us a method to win through, it's not a hard thing to tell a nation that they can survive an otherwise unwinnable future."

"I rest my case, Empress," Stanythe said, which comment puzzled the Star Admiral for a moment until the Empress passed her subordinate a fifty c-bill note for a bet. "Now, you going to say this was a bad idea?"

"Not any more, no," Rini said. "Wayne, before we go any further on this discussion, you do understand that when we leave, you're the ranking officer, correct?"

"Aff, milady, I didn't figure you intending to hang around here," Wayne answered curtly.

"Well, there is really only one way to do this with proper authority, because in the interim of no contact, someone has to make all the hard calls. I think you know which end goes towards enemy, what do you think?" Empress Atrebas asked the Star Admiral.

"I think I know which end is dangerous to life and limb," Wayne said in continuation of the joke. "What is your plan, milady?"

"Mendel cannot exist as a direct extension of the Empire, since there will be no direct contact. Hence why we brought along some of the best and brightest corporations, the best technical experts for the job. Mendel can, however, exist as an off-the-books Protectorate of the Empire, in roughly the same fashion you have been, but a Protectorate commanded at a more flexible level than you stand now."

"Ah," Gerald groused. "Two Star Admirals creates a conflict of command. So, someone gets frocked."

"Or, more specifically, everyone in Task Force Jokers Wild gets frocked one rank," Rini said. "I cannot in good conscience simply issue a unit citation for all the crap you have gone through, Star Admiral. This is the kind of scenario that wasn't even written about during the Quarter War, and still you went out of your way to make sure Blue Cosmos bled hard and your people survived. So, under Emperor's Authority pertaining to battlefield promotions and recognitions, I hereby order all persons Task Force Jokers Wild promoted one rank, effective immediately. That includes you, Wayne."

"Whose spot am I poaching? DC Caecilius?" Wayne was referring to his effective commander, Gerard Caecilius, Division Commander Techstrikers and the 4th in command of the Empire at large.

"Neg," Empress Atrebas answered immediately. "Another thing that goes along with Emperor's privilege is the ability to create or move Division Commander positions — theoretically I could have one senior and four subordinate DCs in each Division, if I wanted. I can also add or remove Divisions during times of war as needed; the Commandos and the Special Operators both came into existence in such fashion, the Commandos during the early phases of the Star Empire Wars, the Special Operators after the fall of the Star League and the beginning of the Quarter War. My grandfather did not like playing nice, and he had a distinct love of changing the rules on his less-than-honorable foes whenever he deemed advantageous."

"Ah, and thus, since we are now at a state of undeclared total war, two wars technically, you are invoking this premise to form a sixth Division?" Wayne summed up the plan.

"On paper, you will exist classified beyond even the level of the Special Operators," Division Commander Agrippa noted. "In practice, you will be well out of sight and out of mind. All you need to do is adhere to the old laws, do what you must for your individual situation, and kick plenty of ass as needed and effectively unsupported. And that starts by the proving ground laid out for you, here, on Terra."

"Brevet Division Commander Wayne Centara, this is your Trial of Position," Empress Atrebas tapped on the comp-tablet that had his broad strokes battleplan for the invasion. "A successful outcome will not only ensure your survival, but cement your position as DC6, the Division Commander of the Mendel Division, and it may win us the war Rangarok in the end. Do you accept this duty?"

"Aff, Empress Atrebas," Wayne said after a few moments of considering it. When the options were on the table, there was no other option for him but to accept — any other choice would lead to annihilation, either immediately or in the future.

-x-x-x-

(12 April CE 73, 0130 Hours Lima (UTC-7))  
>(Unidentified farm house, Northeastern Colorado, Old United States territory of the Atlantic Federation)<p>

"Aww, bullshit, some joker in Quarter must have pulled two MREs from this case and closed it back up," the trooper that was unloading the truck said.

"Fucking cheapskate punks," the elder guy that was receiving the boxes said. "The Mexico City depot has ten restaurants within pissing distance, and they still eat the field rations."

Ghost Officer Benjamin Jones suppressed a giggle at their misdirected bitching. Blue Cosmos had sent plenty of supplies along for this ride, given the personnel were supposed to be 'off the grid' so as to avoid detection until time to spring their nasty surprise on the world. They had interspersed the food and water all over the truck's loadbed, making for easy pickings for the Ghost among them, even to the point where they lost a whole case of water bottles to the Ghost that he had used to refill the water bowser in his armor and his fusion power pack so he could remain cloaked without recharging. The water bottles themselves were 'digested' by the nanomachine hive built into the fusion pack, likely to be converted into more fuel. Plastics, technically, were large chains of hydrogen and carbon, and hydrogen is what feeds a fusion reactor, so…

"Eh, that's it, we'll file a complaint after we do Lacus and return to normal ops," the younger BC operator said. "What do you think, old man?"

The elder BC Operator hefted his dolley and started wheeling it toward the 'safe' house. "Eh, good singer, born the wrong way. She lost this round of the genetic lottery."

The Ghost waited the obligatory two, three minutes after he heard the door close, then began his process of moving toward the back of the truck and to the ground. Even if he could not be seen or heard, the truck jostling could be. Just to be sure, he took an extra two minutes to completely dismount the alcohol-converted deuce-and-a-half truck, thus ensuring that any sentries would likely never hear him.

Outside the truck, Benjamin did the first automatic thing of his routine — determine location. The cloudless sky gave him excellent star picture, which established his rough location as northeast Colorado in the old United States. That was fortuitous; being in Colorado put him not far from Missouri, and that happy state of affairs put him within spitting distance of refuge.

The second part of his automatic routine was simpler: determine objective and mission constraints. His objective was loud and clear, Lacus had to walk away from this, and the Blue Cosmos pricks needed to not walk away. After that, escape, evasion, and extraction were the major selling points of the mission to come. For a Ghost facing a self-crippling foe with no psionic support, that mission would be simple. As soon as a Ghost was 2 kilometers away from a target point, the chances of being found by manual search were less than 1 in 50,000. Blue Cosmos had better odds of hammering him with a random carpet bombing raid than they had of manually finding him once the E&E phase was on.

Third part of the automatic checks, the objective area and entry / egress points, became the challenge that lasted thirty seconds. A quick walk around the perimeter of the building revealed a cellar access that the troops had opened to air out the musty wine cellar. Once he approached, it became obvious this was where they were keeping Lacus, what with her handcuffed to a chair in the center of the area. He could not enter immediately — the BC crew were handing in supplies for storage, but the last load of MREs and ammo did not take long to shuffle in before Benjamin saw his opportunity.

Four steps down, a turn, four more steps, and Benjamin had no difficulty finding an unused corner to rest in. This was what a Ghost trained for — periods of waiting, periods of sheer terror, all for one perfect, glorious moment to severely fuck up as many enemies as possible while he or she executed his own objectives. In terms of operations, the enemy had made all the wrong security moves to protect against a Ghost — six tangos, and Benjamin figured he could easily kill them all in less time than most people would take to unzip their flies and haul out their whangs.

The conversation in the room, on the other hand, was something else entirely. "Your friends in Mendel are getting frisky," the female lead for BC said with a smile.

"Not my friends," Lacus said almost defensively. "Not friends to Orb, either. They play their own game; I try to avoid them whenever possible."

"Okay, I'll give you that much," the Lead answered. Benjamin figured her for someone who was physically and mentally suited to being a magazine supermodel: drop dead gorgeous looks, personality reminiscent of the sound of glass breaking. "Still, Wayne Centara just got promoted to Division Commander. Fat lot of good it will do him."

"He's earned it, I guess," Lacus said with almost cold disinterest. "I don't know enough about them to know what it takes to be a Division Commander, all I know is that's the top achievable position."

"Well, what do you know?" she asked after a moment.

"Same as you, at a guess," Lacus said calmly. "They increased their forces twelve-fold, mostly infantry, which means they're here to stay. They're really displeased with the nuclear attack. And they seem to favor coming right for the source of the problem. You probably know more than I do at this point."

"Well, we'll see what kind of stomach these guys have when we put a gun to your head on international television," the Lead said with an evil grin to effect.

_Like hell you will, honey_, Benjamin thought but did not say aloud. He had already made the leap of mindset that the BC Lead would not survive, even if he let anyone else go from this misbegotten comedy. When she answered a speakerphone and told the caller her number, Benjamin had his method of disrupting their 'showtime'. Bugging the land-line phone system here to make the disruption, of course, would be a simple task for a Ghost.

-x-x-x-

(12 April CE 73, 1415 Hours Lima (UTC-6))  
>(1100 Beech Street, Rockford, Illinois, Old United States Territory, Atlantic Federation)<p>

"My mom doesn't know it yet, but hell with this piss and vinegar fuck-stick stuff," the lone teenager in the bedroom said. "When Mendel rolls through, I'm playing it calm. She wants to throw herself at a wall of Armored Infantry, her deal, not mine."

"What? Don't you — "

"Don't say it, Jeane," the teen on the phone said. "Yeah, I love my mom, but a million people throwing themselves off a cliff does not make them morally superior, it just means you need an accountant to keep track of the bodies. I'm not making myself a million and one, you know?"

"Sucks to be the guy cleaning up that mess," Jeane answered coldly.

"I know. Which is why I'm not going to get stomped on by their Armored Infantry. Lay low, watch how it unfolds, root for the winners, live happily ever after one way or the other," Katie said to her best friend on the phone. "When it kicks off, you want to come over for a television party?"

"Yeah, should be in the next couple of days," Jeane answered. "I'll hit the quickie-mart and grab some beers and chips. The clerk will sell me some stuff out the back door."

"I hope he doesn't expect your back door," Katie said with a soured tone.

"Nah, all I have to do is show him my boobies. Nothing to it," Jeane answered. "Guys are such perverts, a little coaxing and you can get it all for next to nothing."

"Ain't it the truth — huh?" Katie stammered at the end of her thought process. "Hey, do you have channel 9?"

"Yeah, why?" Jeane asked.

"You gotta see this shit," Katie said before she unmuted her television.

"...These recon photos from the Republic of East Asia are three days old, taken at night using low-light enhanced cameras. Seen here at this classified Earth Alliance base are mass graves," the picture highlighted four square pits with black bag-like objects in them. "When the Earth Alliance is done with its hired help, or when service is refused or challenged, the workers are slain in mass executions — you can see one such firing squad here, in the same picture, not 100 meters from the graves. It is believed that the workers being shot in this picture were the ones that dug the graves now being filled. So much for gratitude from the masters."

"That is fucking sick," Jeane said over the phone.

"That's not surprising," Katie answered. "Who is putting this video out?"

"I don't know," Jeane admitted.

The picture zoomed out to a view of the entire planet, then highlighted the area of Panama. "While the Earth Alliance and Blue Cosmos posture badly against the residents of space, the Earth Alliance Jungle Engineers have been busy preparing both defenses against reclamation of territory and an assault action against the United States of South America — yet another uninvolved party for the megalomaniacs to attack. These clearings here, here, and here," and three clearings in the jungle were highlighted, significant strip-clearings given the whole of Panama was still in view, "are the field bases of three Earth Alliance mechanized forces regiments. When the invasion goes up, their intention is to drive into USSA territory to hold an uninvolved nation ransom against the forces from Space. Is this what you elected Chairman Riseman for, to attack defenseless parties? To slaughter your own citizens? To starve and depress whole continents to feed a war machine?"

"This is… Mendel?" Katie asked Jeane after a moment.

"Has to be. They're the only ones with the balls to invade our airwaves and put out something like this," the teen on the far end of the line said.

"Most telling of all, in the Atlantic Federation old territory of Kentucky, our reconnaissance units have found disturbing troop movements in multiple old American bases. Fort Hood, Fort Knox, Fort Benning, and NORAD have all mobilized Military Police units without attaching these formations to any other units. Normally, Military Police are used to direct forces, organize movement, and aid in the transport of supplies and wounded persons to or from the battlefield, when a MP unit is attached to a larger formation." Katie had to admit that Mendel's stock footage of MPs in action in combat was impressive. "However, when MP formations are activated in noncombat areas, without being attached to units, the common trend throughout history is these formations are going to be used to quell civilians, suppress dissent, and if necessary to eliminate resistors to a tyrant's decrees. Given that the Earth Alliance is at war, Chairman Riseman now has the theoretical ability to declare martial law and use these infantry-police formations against his own people." The stock footage of military-style troops facing off against protesters was stomach-turning in its brutality.

"That's fucking scary," Jeane said.

"Better head to the quickie-mart and soon, in case this shit comes our way," Katie said.

"Citizens of the Earth Alliance, is this what you want your nation to be? Thieves, muggers, tyrants, mass-murders? You have the power to bring a stop to Chairman Riseman and his cohorts! Stand up for yourselves, and a world will recognize your legitimacy. Mendel stands with the honest, hard-working and peaceful citizens of the Earth Alliance, but we cannot stand alone for you! This is JADE, signing off."

"Okay, for a propaganda piece, that was completely scary and logical," Katie said to Jeane over the phone.

"I know. I'm going to hit the store, make sure I've got everything I'll need in case something bad happens."

"I hear that. See ya later!" Katie hung up her phone and stared at the blank television. "We are the monsters we say we're fighting. That is scary."

-x-x-x-

(12 April CE 73, 2330 Hours Zulu)  
>(Seas northeast of Iceland)<p>

"Looks like everyone is online, sir," the Sonarman said. "Ten kilometer spacing, with two and a half overlap on either side, twenty subs against whatever is left in their inventory, I think we have this one."

"Alright, Kenny, time to earn your paycheck," Captain Luyties said with a smile. "We've dropped nine of the twelve boomers (2) and scratched four hunter-killers while we were at it. Our western fleet has scratched two surface ships, one boomer, and nine subs. The Earth Alliance only has another twenty subs in their inventory, most of those are PacFleet subs and highly unlikely to be over here. Our major worry now is their underwater Mobile Suits guarding Heavens Base and the fleet bases at Faslane or Charleston."

"Works for me," the XO said. "And, for those pukes, we have a little friend."

"Oh yes, yes we do," Captain Luyties said. The Deep Forbidden and Forbidden Blue were protected against torpedoes by their Trans-Phase Armor, even the large anti-sub torpedoes used by the _Longboat_ and her sister ships. Energetic reactions were not defensible to Trans-Phase Armor; in fact, Mendel planned on making extensive use of their Inferno and Acid missile warheads for just exactly that purpose, to burn through Trans Phase Armor using otherwise readily-available conventional munitions to supplement their energy weapons. Scandinavia had gone the same direction, but in a micro-torpedo package, using thermite torpedo-delivered limpet mines as their reagent to burn holes into the Mobile Suits, then a small explosive charge to remove the limpet mine and allow seawater into the body of the MS. Once the inside of a Mobile Suit was vented to the outside seascape, the lifespan of that machine could be measured in seconds.

"We have our go-code, rig in the snorkel and set your depth 600 meters submerged," Captain Luyties ordered. "Helm, your course is 2-1-0 true for the time being, forward speed ten knots. Chief of the watch, signal battle stations."

'Kenny' returned to the small closet that passed for a Sonar room. He had visited the United States Naval Warfare Museum in Washington, DC, back before the Earth Alliance went full douchebag and started randomly killing Coordinators at national-newsworthy levels, and the Sonar center in the _Los Angeles_-class subs was quite a bit larger than the one on the _Longboat_-class subs. On the other hand, Scandinavia had increased the sensitivity and range of sonar systems to an extensive degree over the old _688_ boats, making his two sonar consoles more lethal than two or three _Los Angeles_ subs combined.

The Earth Alliance, in the absence of a credible naval threat, had allowed their submarine forces to slack off. Now, they were filling the gap with Mobile Suits, a cheap and low-manpower stopgap that didn't impress the Scandinavians. This game was now on, so far as the Nordic Operators were concerned. Time would give them complete control of the Northlant.

-x-

(2 hours later, now 145 NM to Iceland)

"Conn, Sonar, positive contact, 4 underwater Mobile Suits, acoustic signature does not match ZAFT machines. It's going to be Forbidden Blue units. Range estimate 9000 meters, course 2-2-5, best bearing is northbound on these guys. They're not in a hurry to do anything, though."

"Depth?" Captain Luyties asked after a moment to step up to the door of the Sonar room.

"Sounds like 200 meters right now, they're running pretty shallow, sir," 'Cartman' answered the Captain's question immediately. Much like Kenny, he was a fan of South park, and had a dead-on impression of Cartman's voice whenever he wanted to use it.

"They have a hard floor of 1000 meters, though," Kenny said.

"And our hard floor is 3500 meters," Maxwell said. "We'll pop off a canister round and dive for the floor, make it impossible for them to catch us." His strategy was predicated on the concern of crush depths for his submarine versus the hull crush depth of the Forbidden Series. Unlike a proper Submarine, the Forbidden machines were not designed to handle water pressures of depths beyond 1000 meters, due to pressure displacement limitations of the humanoid form. Thus, it was theoretically possible for Maxwell to take a shot, dive hard and fast, and simply scoot off in another direction unseen and unheard by the surface-dwellers.

Alternately, he could go full silent, slow-fire on them, and wait for the results like a hole in the water, which sounded like a far better plan at the moment. The Forbidden machines had a decent sonar, but their ability to localize a quiet threat was really limited to a bubble of 5000 meters around them in the same temperature gradient… "Chief of the watch, rig ship for ultra quiet. Attack Center, plot solution for 1 LCU."

The Chief pulled down the microphone handset and set it to 1MC. "All hands now hear this, rig ship for ultra-quiet."

"Helm, cut speed to 2 knots forward. Weps, where is that firing solution?" Maxwell asked after a moment.

"Solution is being calculated, now," the Weapons Lieutenant answered. "On your screen… now," he pointed to one of the monitors nearby the Captain's chair.

"Nice. Load tubes one to four with conventional torpedoes, tube five with a LCU, and tube six with a decoy. Open outer doors on four, five, six only when loaded."

Loading the torpedo tubes became the present time-eater in his attack plan. He had two torpedo teams loading the tubes, but each tube had to be loaded effectively individually. That alone cost him 90 seconds to get the six tubes into battery.

"All tubes loaded, sir, and firing solution is active. What are your orders?" The XO asked.

"Ram tube five," Maxwell ordered, which differed from normal torpedo firing in that there was no burst of high-pressure air to kick the torpedo out, so no launch sound would be heard by the opposition. The torpedo was shoved out by a hydraulic ram into the sea, and once it passed the end of the tube the motor would start and the torpedo would follow the firing solution movement course. The advent of torpedo ram deployment was a Scandinavian trick from the later parts of the Reconstruction War, to make things harder on the Americans in sub-to-sub combat.

It worked. "Conn, Sonar, the enemies went live when the torpedo passed 4000 meters, sir. Time to intercept now 95 seconds."

"Run to the hills, mother-fuckers. The reaper is in town, and his scythe has your name on it," the Lieutenant in control of Weps said.

"Getting a little bit personal, are we?" Maxwell asked idly.

"I had a cousin on Mendel II. She was confirmed inside the civilian loading docks when the nuke went off a block away from her. No body found, no body expected."

"That blows," Kenny said, never having heard that tidbit about the rest of the crew.

"We'll reap some hard vengeance," Maxwell said. "We have plenty of whoopass to go around."

The torpedo-delivered limpet mines were only a fraction of the size of their large-bore counterparts. Scandinavia had been cranking out literally hundreds of the micro-torpedoes in anticipation of this scenario, with special LCU cases (**L**aunching **C**luster **U**nitary **Cases**) to deploy 30 of the micro-torpedoes per launch. The LCU would travel along as a standard torpedo would until it arrived at a target area, then it ejected the side panels on the torpedo body to expose the micro-torpedoes and release them. Six clusters of five torpedoes would eject from the case and begin homing in on any sonar targets in the area that were larger than a DSRV or UUV, and smaller than a normal submarine; this prevented the micro-torpedoes from wasting themselves on the heavy double-hull construction of an enemy sub and stopped the inadvertent targeting of the Scandinavian SSKs. The micro-torpedoes were engineered to have 65 knots of submerged speed for 10 knots travel distance, which would prevent all but the luckiest of Mobile Suit pilots from escaping their wrath.

In this case, there was a little luck to be had amongst the latest of the Forbidden Blue line, the Forbidden Vortex Gundam. Of the thirty torpedoes, 13 found their mark on enemy machines, including one machine that took only one. The one machine that suffered only one hit was smart enough to fast-surface his Gundam, the other pilots freaked out when their machines started reporting armor damage and then breaches. Once opened up to seawater, the machines began compressing in on themselves and crushed on their sinking voyage to the sea floor.

"Three down, one surfaced," Cartman reported. "Okay, looks like he is headed back for the barn. This one is sanitized, sir."

"Good. Helm, resume ten knots forward, keep your ears out for any other surprises."

It would only be later that Captain Luyties found out his ship was credited with the first Forbidden kills using the new micro-torpedoes, the first kills in Scandinavia's NorthLant Sweep Campaign, and the first kills in the First Battle of the G-I-UK Gap (3). They would also not be his last kills.

-x-x-x-

(13 April CE 73, 0600 Hours Zulu)  
>(Open Space Area, anti-spinward from L3 (Artemis  Heliopolis))

"Conn, Sensors, four marks dead ahead, range 36 grids," the Sensor Officer said. Each grid amounted to roughly 50 kilometers (4), so the enemy ships were 1800 kilos off, or roughly ten times their maximum effective firing range.

"Understood," Star Admiral Minako Sahalin said calmly. "Helm, wake 'em and shake 'em."

"On it," her Helmsman answered immediately. "Tracking, tracking, lock. Firing one!" Chief Warrant Officer Eliza MacNeil half-shouted as she dropped the first hammer. "Tracking two, tracking two, firing two!" she dispensed with a second shot roughly ten seconds after the first, enough time for the Earth Alliance officers to understand what just screwed them, not enough time for them to do anything about the second hit. "Reloading both guns with armor penetrators, Star Admiral."

"Won't need them, at least until we do ground targets or possibly on Artemis," Minako said. "Sensors, count on remaining ships?"

"Four, Captain. Three _Drakes_ and a _Nelson_," the Flight Boss answered.

"Helm, Conn, secure Rail Guns and take us in direct against their remainder. Weps, missiles and energy weapons only. I still want to save ammo for the ground targets, especially after the beating the Old _Mjol_' took in their defensive stand."

"Energy weapons and missiles, aye aye Star Admiral," the Weapons Controller answered. "Second slug arrived with critical hit, both ships down."

"Sensors, Conn, light 'em up, let us make sure they know who is their reaper today."

"Sensors online, full space picture in three seconds." After the ghosts and spurious returns were filtered out of the sensor system, the screen lit up with a little over thirty more contacts, all Mobile Suits. "Looks like we have some friends out there."

"Just thirty? No significant threat, the point defense grid can destroy that with ease. Continue close, begin firing at optimum range for weapon systems," Captain Joachim ordered.

"Conn, Sensors, identified one enemy special machine, typed as GAT-X133 Sword Calamity. High-performance close-range butchering machine," the Flight Boss noted after reading through the list of identified contacts.

"Let the fire control system speak for us against it," Star Admiral Sahalin said derisively.

"Got it," the Weps Control Officer said. "Point defense grid coming online now, all weapon systems will be active in five."

"Naval Particle and Laser Batteries on the _Nelson_. Port side and starboard side missile batteries to the respective _Drakes_."

"Got it. Time for some teleoperated love taps," the Weps Controller Officer said. "Pass the commands down to the gun crews, people. Make it hurt."

His Fire Arc Controllers began issuing fire directives to the individual guns crews in their arcs, since every weapon section was involved in the fighting except the rear arc. Within seconds, the gun crews returned their fire plans to the attack center that matched their orders, and the gunners were released to dispense with the whoopass at discretion.

The challenge for the gunners became an issue of tracking the individual targets and putting over a hundred guns' worth of firepower onto three ships. For the lasers and the Particle Cannon gunners, this wasn't a huge deal; Lasers operated at the speed of light, Particle Cannons only slightly slower but negligibly offset. The _Golden Phoenix_, though, was not an 'elite' formation in the annals of _Phalanx_ ships; she clipped the enemy with only one of her two Heavy Naval Particle Cannon bays (3 cannons), and hit with all of her lasers except a single pair of 5.5cm lasers that were inadvertently stopped by an Aile Dagger L. When the last of the NL35 bays found its mark, the ship had lost all the useful armor on the front facings and all of its structural integrity, including control systems, thrusters, and most of the forward and side-mounted weapons. The bridge and some of the crew spaces survived intact, but not by much. (5)

The missile strikes were a bit different in timing, due mostly to the missiles being almost completely Teleoperated missiles. Each Teleoperated missile — 15 Barracuda Light, 6 White Shark Medium, 12 Killer Whale Heavy, and 5 Kraken Ultra-heavy missiles were aimed at each of the _Drake_ warships to the sides of their fleet picket — was guided by a Magi naval gunner in a rendition of 'demolition derby' with large space naval torpedoes. The _Golden Phoenix_ technically had another eight launchers pointed in their general direction, though the AR-10 batteries were targeted on the nastiest of enemy Mobile Suits with Barracuda Homing Missiles for good measure. Only in three cases were missiles intercepted, one awares pilot with a lucky beam rifle hit and the machine cannons on the noses of the _Drakes_. 71 of the remaining 73 missiles struck true on their targeted warships from multiple angles, an attack pattern designed to prevent missile fratricide (6). Long before the last of the missiles struck, the ships were combat disabled and mostly derelict from the barrage; with the end of the missiles, there was effectively nothing remaining of the ships worth immediately salvaging.

"Whoa," Captain Joachim Von Ursa groused. "I think we just made a rather loud statement."

"They may have heard your statement," Bondsman Vandervahn Chistu noted after the remaining _Drake_ and the completely-crippled _Nelson_ launched surrender flares.

"Well, the Empress changed the rulebook for this engagement, so we give them one chance." She reached up to one of the growler consoles on the overhead systems cluster, and dialed into the GUARD frequency. "Defeated Earth Alliance Warships and Mobile Suits, this is Star Admiral Minako Sahalin, Multimage Protectorate of Mendel. Your request for surrender is seen and shall be honored but only under our terms. Acknowledge my last."

"Star Admiral Sahalin, this is Captain Craig Gates, Earth Alliance Warship _Hallsey_. I acknowledge your transmission. We request the right to collect survivors and return to Artemis."

"Neg," Star Admiral Sahalin rebuked him. "Your terms of surrender are to stand down your warships and submit yourselves as bondsmen. Due to the thoroughly dishonorable actions of the Earth Alliance, no other arrangement will be honored. The decision is now in your hands."

The decision, such as it was, took only 40 seconds. "Star Admiral Sahalin, Captain Gates. Your terms of surrender are accepted. We will submit ourselves as bondsmen."

The Star Admiral looked to the Flight Boss, who controlled launch and recovery operations on the ship. "Flight Control, prepare Marine boarding parties." Minako brought the radio microphone up and clicked the button again. "Captain Gates, disable your TTS and weapons systems, all Mobile Suits are to land on the remaining deck space of the ships for recovery, and pilots are to disembark their machines for pickup by Marine boarding parties. Welcome to your new reality, Captain."

-x-x-x-

(13 April CE 73, 1500 Hours Zulu)  
>(Artemis Space Station, Lagrange Point 3)<p>

Rear Admiral Gerard Garcia had plenty of reason to sweat this day.

The newly-frocked Division Commander Mendel — formerly Star Admiral Wayne Centara — had reported some good news: the Empress had stepped down the Trial of Annihilation (the worst possible fate for anyone in front of Mendel's firepower) to a Trial of Abjuration (only slightly improved over the former). In practicality, what this meant was that any forces that did not surrender to the Magi would be killed, and any forces the Magi did not want to keep as Bondsmen would be kicked out of the solar system to fates unknown. In all likelihood, what it really meant for his command would be the death of only fifty percent of his troops, as opposed to the 90 or 95 percent he initially estimated. It wasn't much of a consolation, but it beat the hell out of almost-assured death.

Given Mendel would want to have complete dominance of near-space, Artemis had to be on their list. Control of the suborbital reaches was essential to any of their battle plans on the ground, and certainly for supporting the other nations that were getting frisky on the planet below all. ZAFT had their few enclaves and would now be making their moves, the USSA were butt-pluggers for Mendel, and apparently Scandinavia was raising holy undersea hell with a speed and fury unrecognizable before this week. Of course, the great assholes of space, Mendel, would need clear skies so they could rain steel and fire down on the planet, so...

Two warship pickets had fallen already, as evidenced by the destruction of the two _Agamemnon_-class ships he had out and about, both with positive laser-line communication links that suddenly and inexplicably went dead. No doubt, they had run afoul of the _Mjolnr_ and her sister ship, the _Golden Phoenix_, whose Naval Rail guns literally massed more than the ships they were shooting at. It went without saying that the immense killing power of those ships would not be withstandable for long by anything in the Earth Alliance arsenal. Maybe ZAFT's _Gondwanna_, maybe not.

To point: "Those ships aren't coming home, right, sir?" One of his system controllers asked.

"No, son, no they aren't," Garcia answered solemnly. "Your girlfriend was on the _Hallsey_, wasn't she?"

"She was, torpedo crew," the same controller answered.

"There's only one way this can end," Gerald Garcia said solemnly. "Someone has to die and get kicked out of this solar system. Either it's going to be Mendel, or it's going to be us. I'll leave the odds on who wins to the Vegas bookies — or the bookies in the casino on the _Mjolnr_, just as likely."

"Really? A casino on a Warship?" one of the control room ladies asked.

"It's there," Gerald Garcia acknowledged. "One of my operators took a tour of the ship while it was in dock. The casino is real, and he lost twenty c-bills in Blackjack while he was with the tour group. These guys live by a different rulebook."

"It's also a winning — " The operator was interrupted by a mini-earthquake. "What the hell was that?"

"Rear Admiral! We've lost the eastern three Umbrella Emitters!"

Another blast occurred. "Two on the western side are down!" A different controller noted.

Three seconds later: "Damn, they got another two on the eastern side! We've got double opens, sir!"

Rear Admiral Garcia simply laughed. "When they said they could use the rail guns at interplanetary distances, they weren't joking! We can't even see their ships, which means they're firing by lensing the shells through the Earth's gravity field to slingshot them into the right flight path."

"What do we do, sir? What's left of the Umbrella is opening now, but it's not going to stop them for long!"

"What are we going to do?" Garcia simply held a passive mien even as another blast rattled the station. "What can we do, Warrant Officer? We have one of the ships to the west, one to the east. What move do we make?" he quizzed her ruthlessly.

The controller hesitated for a second, with a glance first at the damage board, then the fleet board. "Nothing, sir. We have no options."

"And that is the problem in four words. This is the Atlantic Federation's war, not ours. They kicked the tiger in the ass, it is their job to come up with a plan to deal with the tiger's teeth, and those plans don't involve us dying for their cause. Any objections?"

"You know Blue Cosmos won't stand for you surrendering?" a BC Chief Warrant officer (political hack) noted.

"Kid, look around you," Rear Admiral Garcia said. "Count the amount of pistols aimed at you right now."

The Chief Warrant Officer did the math. "Seven, sir, seven bodies that can be seen to after this war is won, in a decade or two."

Gerard's XO chuckled grimly. "The naivete is strong in this one."

"Indeed, he actually thinks Mendel will put up with another decade of this shit," Garcia said before he resumed his seat. "No, I think the Multimage Empire has tired of their shit, and this is where they pull the plug on the whole movement. A world has begged the Cosmos for someone to end this nightmare, and that party is about to board this station. Peaceably, mind you, since I'm not in this to make a martyr out of myself."

"You're only thinking about your career," the BC Warrant noted.

"My career? Bah," Garcia waved at him dismissively. "My career died and has been on permanent life support since the incident with the _Archangel_. Dying hard may look good in the history books, but it won't be the Earth Alliance or Blue Cosmos writing those history books. There is — " he was briefly interrupted by another series of blasts on the western and eastern flanks of the station. "There is nothing to gain here. Now, I wholeheartedly suggest you don't mention your position in Blue Cosmos when the Marines show up, you hear?"

"I'll take one or two of them with me," he said defiantly.

The BC Warrant was caught looking in the wrong direction by one of the other Warrants. He barely had time to feel the muzzle of a pistol against his deltoid, before the lady shot a single round down through his shoulder and into his heart.

After a moment of watching the body float away, she holstered the pistol. "One or the whole station, and I'm not taking the chance. I'm in here for the college program, not the blue and pure world."

"Nice shot, kid," the XO said before he used a console cord to tie down the body so it didn't float free. "Radio, issue a surrender notice to Mendel before they cause any more damage to the station."

-x-x-x-

(14 April CE 73, 0600 Hours Lima (UTC-6))  
>(Unidentified location)<p>

Lord Djibril had made sure his personage was blacked out for the cameras. He did not want to be seen, given his secondary hostage (Kira Yamato) had been rescued by Ghosts. If they were willing to expend effort on a rescue operation, that meant more Ghosts were on planet — and he didn't want to give them anything that they could use to track him down. Voice distortion was also a good measure in such cases, which his sound technician had applied a double-pass distortion to it.

"Attention, citizens of Mendel, ZAFT, and Scandinavia. Your three nations are to be commended for your swift victories in space and at sea. The Earth Alliance will take several years to fully recover from the damage so far delivered, which is no small feat for three nations with a combined population of less than Europe," Djibril began his global speech. "Despite the excellent victories in limited battle, you do not have the manpower necessary to begin a land campaign in Europe or North America, and I advise your nations to remember that going forward. Even the reinforcements brought by the Empress Atrebas are not sufficient to stand against the Earth Alliance."

-x-

(Main conference room, Orb Administration Building)

"Do you believe the balls on this son of a bitch?" Lord Ezekiel Cenvanas asked nobody in particular.

"He has obviously never studied the Magi methods of war, and he incorrectly assumes that his entire population will stand against Mendel," Lady Rondo Mina Sahaku said.

"I do not see how he could completely miss the obvious points in this one," Colonel Kisaka said heartily. "Wayne doesn't have to take every inch of land, he just has to break the governments."

"I will not bore the people to sleep with the details of our extensive preparations to counter an obvious invasion attempt. I will simply say that we have a million troops in the field and ready to act — not even your vaunted Suborbital Fire Support can turn such a tide," Djibril said haughtily. He had no knowledge that he was echoing a rather famous Negaverse Dark Lord that had said the same thing to the Magi in millennia past, and she had paid dearly for such empty boasting.

"Someone is about to bleed for their arrogance," Cagalli decreed.

-x-

(Main Command Center, USSA Manaus Garrison)

"Good luck on that one, amigo," Edward Harrelson said coldly.

"Kinda makes you wish a Ghost would just show up and pop this hemorrhoid, so we don't have to listen to this seeping bullshit," the President said candidly. Here in the military bunker, he could speak freely without issue. "And where the hell is Riseman? Doesn't he have a leash on this fruitbag?"

"Probably the other way around, sir," the Secretary of Defense for the USSA answered. "LOGOS effectively controls the politicians."

"I will have the war ended and call it a draw if three preconditions are met. If the parties refuse, I have a penalty for the world — a small penalty, but a rather poignant one. First, the Scandinavians are to stand down and return all their ships and subs to port. The Scandinavians will pay restitution to the Earth Alliance in response to their unprovoked destruction of our warships, Mobile Suits, and submarines."

-x-

(Royal Palace Main Conference Room, Equatorial Union)

"Our own defenses are coming along?" the King asked his eldest son after a moment.

"We have a full battalion of the Hovercraft in deploy. If anything comes looking, it will end badly for them," the Prince assured his father.

"We do not have a position, but we will defend our sovereignty. Nobody shall challenge the Union," the King claimed.

"Second, the Zodiac Alliance shall stand down their naval forces and land bases. The PLANTs will submit to international inspections for compliance with the Junius Treaty, but shall not suffer any further repercussions for their actions thus far taken."

"Like hell ZAFT will stand up for that," the Crown Prince noted with a smile. It was fairly obvious that this was not good-faith negotiation, Djibril was adding dynamite to a burning fire, a combination that would not bode well for anyone.

-x-

(Gundam Astray Blue Frame, Gigafloat Rail Lancher platform)

"I would ask if they are serious, but he is not," Elijah said.

"He's trying to enrage the other players," Kazahana Aja declared. "His 'penalty' will be calculated to make this infinitely worse, even if he says it is small."

"Concur," Gai Murakumo noted with a soured expression. "Mendel will certainly not comply with anything he asks."

"Third, Mendel must submit to occupation by the Earth Alliance, must turn over all captured facilities, and either stand down their forces or remove themselves from this star system. Such a dangerous party as the Multimage Star Empire, who has built a history on hostile takeovers of other, lesser nations, cannot be allowed to remain a functional party in the political environment on Earth. This requirement is non-negotiable, and the stand-down order includes the multiple teams of Ghosts you have running around in the Atlantic Federation at this time. Oh yes, I know about the Ghosts. Stand them down, Star Admiral, or the blood they shed shall be on your hands."

"Indeed, no chance of Mendel accepting that," Loretta Aja said with a frown.

-x-

(Bridge, Warship _Mjolnr_)

"Ai, prepare to break into his channel and split-screen him versus me," Wayne said.

"I'm already inside his carrier loop, just depress your microphone when ready," the Artificial Intelligence entity said.

"Oh, this is gonna be good," Calamira Weste noted sardonically, in the neutral voice of female disdain that any guy could recognize.

"If these preconditions are met, the Earth Alliance will recognize a draw battle. Failure to do so will result in a penalty." The view briefly switched over to a picture of a girl handcuffed to a chair in a basement somewhere. Millions of viewers around the planet recognized it as Lacus Clyne in the chair. "I am sure you heads of state can recognize the person in the chair. She dies in six hours unless I have a declaration of intent to comply with my demands."

Wayne brought his microphone up and depressed the talk button. "Attention Lord Djibril of the Earth Alliance Industrial collective LOGOS." Wayne paused for a moment, which was enough to show the world the surprised reaction of the darked out man on the other side of the split screen. "Oh yes, Djibril. I know exactly who you are. I know exactly where you are right now, and I know where your five other houses are, and the two bunkers you might consider using as fallback survival locations. I know all about you, the three-inch bat you swing, the strange auto-erotic asphyxiation thing you get a kick out of, and the whole 'I will kill an uninvolved pop star because I'm getting my ass beat in a war I started' routine. You are one sick fuck, Djibril, and while you think you are clever hiding behind a dark-out graphic and a double-pass voice distortion system, you cannot escape the wrath of the Magi. Welcome to my world, Djibril. Welcome to my personal Hell."

A light clicked on in the room, obviously by choice of Djibril, revealing the man, the uniform, the horrid makeup job, and the cat. "Coming from a man who hides behind 30,000 tons of armor, and who plans to rain death down on this world, you have plenty of room to talk, Centara."

"I am not hiding, Djibril. Any amateur stargazer with a telescope can see my warship orbiting the planet every two hours. I am winning, Djibril, not hiding. That you are holding a world hostage with the leftover nuclear arsenal of the United States, and holding a gun to the head of a little girl, you are simply demonstrating to the world the sheer impotence of the Earth Alliance. Empress Atrebas has already told me that I am to boot you off the planet, and no Magi officer would disobey such an order after seeing your pussy visage try to intimidate a world into silence, so allow me to offer you a suggestion. You may take your demands of Magi surrender, you are advised to cram them up your arse, sit down on them, and rotate counterclockwise four times or until you pass out from overstimulation. Do you read me, Djibril?"

"Three hours, Centara. Lacus dies, or your gambit ends. The decision is yours. This conversation is over."

Djibril's feed cut, but Wayne's remained and took over the primary view. "Well, ladies and gentlemen of the Earth Sphere, you heard it straight from the instigator himself. Because the psycho schizo freak is not getting his way and cannot dominate the Earth Sphere any more, he's just going to kill a pop star and continue the war. Mendel will make all efforts possible to rescue Lacus, but the days of a world being held hostage at the whims of sociopaths have ended. This game of power and thrones has ended, for I intend to destroy the thrones in question by way of the naval autocannons on this ship. Those who shall not allow others to live in peace shall bring peace to the world by departing this world, one way or the hard way. These are my orders, and I shall execute them to the letter."

Wayne paused for a moment to consider his next tack, then resumed. "All Earth Alliance citizens are advised to prepare evacuation plans and/or personal supply caches of food, medicines, heat and light sources, and water. When the invasion begins, your access to critical supplies may be disrupted; having caches of your own may save your lives. We will do all in our power to prevent civilian disruptions, but war is chaotic at best; I can make no guarantees of avoiding collateral disruptions or casualties. If you are religious, I request prayers and/or offerings for Lacus Clyne, and for the world as a whole. This campaign has only begun, and it shall be worse before it becomes better."

"Division Commander Wayne Centara, Multimage Protectorate of Mendel, signing off."

-x-x-x-

(14 April CE 73, 0800 Hours Lima (UTC-7))  
>(Unidentified location)<p>

Lacus had been silently baffled about the camera setup that was aimed at her, initially, but passed it off to some manner of videolog or presentation that otherwise involved her being a hostage. She ignored the camera, unwilling to give the perverts on the far side of it any satisfaction.

Three hours prior, Lacus had been put on notice that her execution was coming, and that it would be televised to the entire world to show just how heartless Mendel truly was. Lacus said nothing, given that she was pretty sure the trigger-man for this execution was not a Mendel officer.

Now, with the arrival of the entire BC Operations group that was assigned to this task (6 persons), she knew the hour was at hand. She had only struggled against it for the first thirty minutes; the handcuffs that bound her to the chair were double-locked to prevent escape and prevent them from over-tightening on her wrists. The rest was resigned depression; knowing one would die at a set time, and that there was no option to avoid it, these thoughts ate at someone's soul. By the time the crew was ready to begin their presentation, she was resigned to her fate, but almost completely depressed by it just the same.

The phone rang, to which the Lead put it on speaker by rote. "231 Group."

"You have not completed the task yet, correct?" Lord Djibril asked.

"No, sir, we were waiting for confirmation of noncompliance," the Lead answered.

"Excellent. I want Mendel to wallow in their failure. I want the Division Commander to see the first of many innocents die, this one live and in real color. When we go live, you will introduce yourself, give Mendel 30 seconds to make their final decision, and then you will execute her by pistol shot so the whole world can see her face. Clear?"

"Clear, sir. Do I use a suppressor, or full noise?"

"Suppressor," Djibril answered after a few seconds. "Take your position, as soon as the camera record light flips on, begin." He hung up immediately afterward, intent to watch on the television in the coming minutes.

-x-

"I don't think Djibril is issuing idle threats, unless Mendel has already interfered in the loop?" Colonel Kisaka asked Rondo Mina Sahaku.

"Not to my knowledge, Colonel," Mina answered coldly. "By Haumea, I wish they would interfere, though. I don't want to field the civilian backlash from this one."

The Blue Cosmos feed on several international stations had been on a countdown timer, counting down the time that Mendel and the other nations had to accede to BC demands. It had zeroed out some minutes ago, sitting at a blinking 0:00:00 prompt, meaning that war (and Lacus' execution) could not be avoided. In all reality, it was expected. Lacus was famous, loved, but she was one lady at the threat of a whole world. Centara had said it best, the days of a sociopath holding a whole world hostage were over, and apparently every other nation so far involved agreed with him.

The feed blacked out from the blue-on-white timer and screen, then came back to a live picture from the same basement that Lacus was held in.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the Blue and Pure world. I am Commander Michelle Jones, Blue Cosmos 231 Special Operations Cell. As Mendel has seen fit to ignore the demand to submit to proper authority, the elimination of Coordinators wholesale shall resume right now, with Lacus Clyne. Mendel has 30 seconds gratuity to make a final offer of surrender."

-x-

(Combat Information Center, Royal Palace of Scandinavia)

"Fucking sick bastards, the lot of 'em," the Crown Prince complained.

"She was a lovely one, but optimistic. She is rather broken now," Retainer Karl Grimmson noted to his ward, the Prince.

Prince Gustav nodded solemnly. He looked up to the other officers in the control room. "Now hear this, ladies and gentlemen. If any man in this room thinks we are not justified in dropping Blue Cosmos into the grave they have dug for themselves, present yourselves immediately and Retainer Grimmson will slap the fail out of you for holding sympathy for these demons." A few of his operational personnel chuckled at the joke, but nobody stepped up. The Prince took it as sign that his personnel were on-board with the Star Admiral's decoration.

"Highness! Look! Movement on the right periphery! On the screen!" a sharper-eyed lady said from the analysis pit.

"The hell is that? Some kind of spectral outli—" the Prince cut himself off midsentence. Once the word 'spectral' crossed his lips, he intrinsically knew what he was looking at.

-x-

(Gigafloat Rail Launcher Platform)

"Not a good way to go, publicly executed like that. Probably tearing up her parents, seeing that," Elijah commented.

"Her father was gunned down by ZAFT hard-liners toward the end of the war," Gai corrected the slight misstep by his teammate. "Her only effective family is her boyfriend — Kira Yamato, who was kidnapped but is now MIA somewhere in the old United States territory."

"Still, a world will weep when that wench pulls the trigger," Loretta Aja said curtly. "And I will be one of them."

The phone rang on the feed coming from the basement. It rang a second time, when Commander Michelle Jones allowed herself a brief bit of visible frustration at the interruption. Another BC operator reached into the view and tapped a key on it, which put the phone on speaker so everyone could hear it.

-x-

(Undeclared location)

"Who the hell is calling them?" Djibril asked as soon as the phone rang. He made sure it wasn't him, in case his phone was acting screwy.

"Not us, sir," his tech guru said.

The phone crackled for a moment, then was assailed by a loud three seconds of guitar, obviously some part of a song. The lyrics started next: 'I am your inner fear, your kind refuse to hear,' was the first part of the song's message. It continued even as the nightmare set in for the BC Operators: they had been hacked, hard, on what should have been a secured line. 'I am the light,' it continued, before the first visual indicator of something gone wrong happened.

Live, on millions of television sets around the globe, a small puff of smoke on the right side of the room was followed in the next frame by the Commander's right side of her head shredding out. The following frames showed the classic pink mist of blood flying in the general direction of the bullet's travel. For the Commander's demise, there were no theatrics, no flopping around, nothing. She was standing one moment, her head shredded out, then the body collapsed to the floor with all the grace of a falling sack of potatoes. The grotesque sound of her drop was only magnified by the screech of someone else in the area, but it wasn't Lacus that had screamed. As far as the Pink Princess was concerned, she simply stared, wide-eyed, at the dropped body of her never-to-be executioner.

Still, the song continued on the phone: 'I am the way,' the next lyric shouted, before the trooper behind Lacus took several suppressed rounds in the chest, the silenced weapon used briefly audible above the music.

"DAMNIT!" Djibril shouted when he realized what had happened.

-x-

(Warship _Mjolnr_)

'But the fallacies of man, are easy to embrace,' the song continued unabated, as the entire bridge crew watched on, which segued into several seconds of wailing electric guitar, punctuated by several bursts of some kind of suppressed machine gun.

"Hot damn! Whoever that Ghost is, he's fucking waxing the bastards!" CWO Willy shouted from the helm station.

"Two points for our side," Strategic Officer Weste declared.

The shooting ended about the time the song arrived at the chorus, which was rather ironic a choice in song, probably deliberately on the part of the Ghost. 'Mankind's dishonesty lays them to waste / (I will divide) / I am the truth, and I walk alone,' at which point a final burst of suppressed gunfire shredded the phone apart on live television.

"This one is on you, Djibril, for I am the Truth, and I walk alone," a detached voice told the camera, a bare second before a Mendel Armored Infantryman appeared out the thin air between the camera and Lacus Clyne. "Next time you want someone dead, you don't fuck around about it on live television. Grossly unprofessional, melodramatic conduct. Then again, considering you are the foremost expert on wangst and bad makeup on television right now, this classic FUBAR might be par for the course."

The Ghost took the time to slip the submachine gun he was using in behind the back of his shield, then used a forearm 'heat knife' to chop off the handcuffs from the part attached to the chair arms. "The name's Benjamin Jones, Djibril. I want you to remember it and remember it well, because I am the Ghost Instructor who shall train the army of invisible assholes that will hunt you down to the ends of this miserable little planet. That is, if I don't do it myself." The Ghost put the barrel of a silenced pistol to the lens of the camera. The camera was a rather expensive, high-quality studio piece, and was able to focus close enough to see the tooling marks on the end of the suppressor. "Remember this view, wanker, because you will see it again in what remains of your life."

The signal feed from the camera cut out a half-second later.

"And a whole world goes wild for the brutal rescue operation," Calamira said. "I wish you could hear this, Wayne. If there was any one thing that united a whole world in celebration, Benjamin capping off the BC Commander was it."

"And a nation shall thank him for it," Wayne promised. "Have Lightbringer start running plans to get them out of Dodge as soon as we begin the landing operations. If he has to go deep in, that may be what it takes." DC Centara looked wide, to the flight control areas of the bridge. "Alright, people, we have three Ghosts and two protected persons flapping in the wind right now. The only way we can ensure they survive is by giving the Earth Alliance a hard-on in a different direction. Prepare to make some noise!"

-x-

"This is BULLSHIT" Djibril raged. The self-styled Lord of LOGOS and industrial titan drop-kicked his cat across the room in expression of his frustration, though the cat landed on a couch and simply ran off to another room to avoid further air-time.

"Sir, what are your orders?" his subordinate BC General asked.

"Find them, kill them, and make it public and bloody. I don't care how you do it, I don't care what you do it with, just make sure the bodies are recognizable when you are done," he said coldly. "This bullshit has to end, or we will end up spending two decades after the end of this war simply reestablishing our credibility!"

_We're damn near out of credibility thanks your your bullshit makeup job, sir_, the General thought but did not say. "We're on it, sir!"

-x-

"Come on, kid, can you stand?" Ghost Instructor Jones asked the former hostage.

"I can," Lacus answered, though when she did stand up it was rather shaky.

"You're not going to be able to walk out of here," Benjamin judged. "First thing's first, you will need supplies for the haul. This isn't going to be a trivial run home."

"Why?" Lacus asked.

"Well, you don't want to hang around for the follow-on troops, do you?" Benjamin asked in counter.

"No, why didn't you act sooner?" Lacus asked with significant anger to voice. "You've been here the whole time, but you only acted at the last possible — " she seized up after Benjamin pulled his helmet. Lacus would not say it, but she was very much surprised to see a rather old guy in the armor, with a literally gray beard and mustache under the helmet, and more age lines in his face than her father had had on his own mien. This was no young trooper, he was an old hand. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be angry for someone saving my life."

"You just came five seconds away from being executed," Benjamin said. "You have a lot of emotion running rampant in your mind. Anger is certainly high on that list. Don't fight your emotions, don't suppress them, and sure as hell, don't internalize them or make them permanent. You'll warp your mind doing those things."

"Okay," Lacus agreed to the pertinent advice.

"The wench has the key to your handcuff remnants. Might want to get rid of those." Ghost Instructor Jones pointed to the Commander. "You escaped death, but you are still in the danger zone. Your first and foremost thought right now should be getting to safety. I will explain why I acted only at the last minute, here in a minute, but right now you need to prepare for a long hike to safety, kid."

"What do I need?" Lacus asked. "Food and water, for sure, but what else?"

"Backpack to transport it," Benjamin pointed to a gearpack that one of the guards laid against the wall. "Dump his useless stuff, keep the sleeping bag set, and food and water are in the cases on the western wall."

"Anything else I will need?"

"Yeah, the cameraman has a pretty good survival knife. You're not likely to need it with me around, but 'just in case' happens all too often in this line of work," Benjamin had unlocked his own shield and set it on the ground, as well as set down his metal square 'backpack' box. Once he was away from the box, Lacus could tell it was really three boxes, two attached to a central box that attached to his armor. "I'll dump what water we don't take for personal use into my fusion pack reservoir."

"Wait, fusion pack?" Lacus asked.

"Yeah, that big box in the center is a self-contained fusion reactor in a backpack," Benjamin said. "So long as I keep it filled with water or hydrocarbon fuel, I can run indefinitely or until I crap out from lack of water or food."

"And you stood here, waiting, silently and motionless... just to rescue me?" Lacus asked.

"Actually, I have been with you since your shuttle left Copernicus," Benjamin admitted. "Keep stocking your pack, MREs and water. You challenged why I did not act sooner. I am a being of stealth, and there are two methods of stealth in Existence: being unseen, and being unheard because louder noise is in the area. I remained by your side by being unseen; my intent was to rescue you by being unheard when the invasion fleet makes its noise, but Djibril forced my hand. Now, a world knows who we are and that we are fleeing. It is time to return to being unseen, and hopefully Division Commander Centara makes enough noise that we can be unheard."

"Oh," Lacus said, which brought things more into focus for her. Not only had this Ghost been standing here, motionless, waiting for the perfect opportunity to rescue her, but he had technically been shanghaied just the same as Kira and Lacus had on that shuttle nearby the Battle of Mendel. "Okay, I have eight bottles of water, six MREs, that's three days of food and water?"

"Not really, but since you won't be walking, it shouldn't be a big deal," Benjamin noted. "I'll be doing all the legwork, so the onus for energy is on me." To point of fact, he had stuffed two cases of MREs into one side of the backpack, along with over a case of water bottles.

"Okay, I have to ask this honestly now, or it's going to eat me up trying to think about it. Why, when Mendel doesn't even like me?"

"No, kid, a world loves you, and that includes Mendel. Just because someone above me doesn't like your policy theories does not lessen your inherent humanity, kid, and that is what this is all about. Now, since we have all our necessary supplies, and also since Blue Cosmos won't be overlong in coming for us, it is time to de-ass this area with all due quickness." Benjamin folded down a jumpseat on the inside of his shield, locked it in place, and swung out a footrest. "Hop on, buckle in, and prepare for one of the bumpiest rides ever."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Chapter Afterword<strong>:

First chapter back into the Joker's Wild after my hiatus, and it is damn good to be doing the naval and Mobile Forces strategic assbeating that is more or less denied me by my other stories. A little bit of everything here, for everyone. Got some personal time, some political work, another one of Durandal's famous speeches, naval work, and even covert ops bookending the chapter.

First thing's first, the Ghost ops at the beginning of the chapter and the end are the good, hard indicator to Blue Cosmos that they are penetrated by some serious players. Rescuing Kira Yamato was part luck, part typical Ghost operation. Terra and Xion happened to be along the travel path for the tangos, so setting up an ambush was a no-brainer. For the record, the sub-machine gun used by Terra is the Rorynex RM3/XXII SMG. It fires a small, explosive round that can seriously shred body armor and even threaten early tank armor if used right. Against exposed personnel, it is hellish.

Rescuing Lacus was a convergence of personnel and chance that worked to everyone's favor (except for BC). Because BC did not know they had a Ghost in the shuttle, they never knew a Ghost was planning on preventing them from executing a noncombatant. All Benjamin had to do was the usual Ghostly 'invisible statue in plain sight' routine to wait for the opportune moment, then drop the hammer and extract Lacus. In this case, what Benjamin told Lacus is true about the defined 'opportune moment'. He intended to wait for the invasion to begin, which would have caused Lacus' escape to be lost in the noise of the planet being hammered by two Legions of Magi troops (on the order of 70,000 veteran, armored troops and mobile units). What happened, instead, he made a very public and very loud statement by executing the executioners on live, uncensored, planet-wide television and thus embarrassed Blue Cosmos in their worst failure since its inception. Of course, insulting the head of LOGOS on international television and giving him some phallic symbolism at the point of a suppressor barrel is only bonus points for Benjamin.

The other major selling point of this chapter is the explanation of scale and purpose, as well as Wayne's promotion to Division Commander. Because Wayne is now the DC over a set-aside Magi Protectorate, his flexibility to make decisions is now far greater and he has the option to grow his Touman (forces) as large as he deems necessary. That said, with no further hope of support from the Empire proper, the game is now entirely on Mendel (and their held territory) to make the necessary advances. Another thing to consider is that because the Mendel Division is not considered type-specific (infantry or technical units, for example), Wayne can expand and contract the forces in any branch as he sees fit. Pay attention to it, because decisions made now will echo in coming Sets.

The last thing is the naval battle around Iceland. Scandinavia may be mopping the floor with the otherwise unprepared Earth Alliance naval forces, don't expect the win streak to continue into perpetuity. The Earth Alliance may have taken a pike to the arse in their own home turf, but an old Cold War esoteric weapon system will make a showing to demonstrate some serious lethality. On the other hand, don't expect the Earth Alliance to stomp the Scandinavians flat, either.

NEXT UP: The invasion commences on Earth, Benjamin runs for safety, and Djibril has a full-on meltdown.

NOTICE: As of this chapter, Inferno In Chicago will resume activity. For any readers of the mainline Jokers Wild, consider giving it a shot when I begin the revision. It will be closer to straight combat than the coming Jokers Wild chapters.

* * *

><p><strong>Beta-Reader's Note: <strong>

Hey readers, Sieben here. Just thought I should bring up the fact that all Lagrangian points referenced in these stories are the Earth-Moon system, and not the Sun-Earth points. Long notation for the points would be in the form of EML1-EML5 for the Earth-Moon system, and SEL1-SEL5 for the Sun-Earth points. Since we are only referencing the Earth-Moon system, we're using the simpler L1-L5 notations. Hope this brings a close to any possible confusion. We had some confusion on our end during the writing of this chapter. (**Stravag's addendum**: The arrival of the Golden Phoenix is also included in this listing of being an EML-1 jump, mainly due to a specially-trained Jump Controller Officer, called a Terra Jumper. They specialize in inserting their ships into the Lagrange points around Terra, given that during the Star Empire Wars the cradle of humanity (in its infinite parallel repeats) was a hot commodity and very frequently fiercely fought over.)

* * *

><p><strong>Review Replies<strong>: 9 reviews on the 9th chapter cycle. HUZZAH!

Sieben Nightwing: Oh, just wait until you see the TO&E I am about to produce.

Fraser Mage: Messages received, amigo. Such tricks will have to make a showing here shortly.

Korraganitar the NightShadow: What? You actually think this is some manner of Curb Stomp yet? Holy shit, son, just wait until you see the action in the next couple chapters and in Inferno in Chicago. I had some of my IIC Readers gaping at just a single air campaign :)

Fire Miner: No, never intended to go 50 chapters. Archangel's Amazing Adventures is the long-term story.

As to Magi citizens renouncing their citizenship, it is allowed explicitly and recommended to anyone who isn't up to Magi personal standards (Ergo, pacifist beyond themselves, separatist, or sides with Loki for the battles of Ragnarok). Treason only applies to those who would aid or abet an enemy of the Empire.

Cody 88: ...And then there was more pain.

Sajuuk: Hey, Sieben here. Sorry to say that it's unlikely that TFJW will not likely be seen in those eras, but if you want something along those lines, you might consider checking out the story _Archangel's Amazing Adventures_. Not exactly Joker's Wild, but it's well enough along the lines. I hope you enjoy the stories.

Knightwolf 1875: I have always wondered, why is it in Battletech that the good leaders are only in power when the shit hits the fan? In the calm eras, it seems the jackwagons rule the roost.

Semper Victis: Thanks for the review, amigo! Also, your posting recommendation did not come through; might I suggest you space it out and clear the punctuation? Like this: .com would be one way to do it.

Name Under Construction: Luna and Gerald are an interesting case that will get even more interesting as the chapters go along. Keep in mind, though, Gerald's dating pre-req is a steep one, and there are no technical qualifiers in the Cosmic Era so far (draw battles, ergo Kira versus Gerald do not count).

**THANK YOU ALL**! Damn good to have feedback, even on this oddball work!

* * *

><p><strong>The Gripe Sheet<strong>:

No gripes from the last chapter, natch. Thanks to **Sieben Nightwing**, **Necroblade**, and **Takeshi Yamato** for keeping my prose straight!

* * *

><p><strong>Footnotes<strong>:

(1): **L**oad **B**earing **E**quipment

(2): Remember, Scandinavia thinks there are twelve boomers, but the Earth Alliance only has ten.

(3): **G**reenland - **I**celand - **U**nited **K**ingdom **Gap**. In Cold War naval terminology, this was considered the critical battleground for maintaining control of the Sea Lanes of Communication between America and Europe. If the Soviets were able to clear and bypass this defensive line, they could debauch into the north atlantic and harass naval forces or shipping almost at whim. Individually, this might be considered a rather nonsensical goal, but when combined with a theoretical ground war in Europe (NATO versus Soviet Bloc), the loss of the Atlantic SLOC could severely cripple NATO's ability to resupply.

(4): The Standard Aerotech space naval ranges are 1 hex = 18 kilometers. In Magi parlance, the range bracket is increased to 1 hex = 50 kilometers, to reflect the increases in sensor power, weapons power, and engine power over standard BT / AT forces.

(5): Damage tracking:  
>Nose armor: 025  
>FL Armor: 023  
>FR Armor: 023  
>SI: 075  
>NOTE: Hits included 3 Heavy NPPCs, 6 NL 55s, and 8 NL 35s, with 2 NL55s missing and 3 Heavy NPPCs missing. Reminder: the damage totals are doubled for energy weapons against SEED targets.<p>

(6): Honest hit roll of 98%, which comes out to 71 of 73 missiles.

* * *

><p><strong>TABLE OF ORGANIZATION AND EQUIPMENT<strong>: Multimage 6th Division (Mendel Division) (as of JW2-10)

**NOTE**: A goodly portion of the sub-units are defined by type, but since the actual forces are in flux until the beginning chapters of IIC and the next couple chapters of JW2, I have listed only their formation type as a placeholder.

**NOTE 2**: Be advised that NO formation listed below is homogenous. If you see an entry for (infantry), that means that Galaxy is primarily Infantry or Mechanized Infantry, with a leavening of heavier assets (armor, aerospace, etcetera). A good rule of thumb is 1 galaxy = 5 clusters, where 3 or 4 of those clusters are the primary unit type.

Overall Commanding Officer: Division Commander Wayne Centara (Multimage / Centara Bloodheritage)

Unit Purpose: Form the backbone forces (Technological and Infantry) for the War of Ragnarok; exist as separate Protectorate to the Empire's core territory; defend life and honor in lands claimed to be Magi/Mendel territory.

Unit Motto: _Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum_ (Latin: If you want peace, prepare for war)

Unit Anthem: _Into The Fire_ (Artist: Sabaton)

-x-x-x-

1st Legion (The Old Guard)  
>Commanding Officer: Legion Commander Gerald Lightbringer (Multimage  Lightbringer Bloodheritage)  
>Warships: MHW-6428 Mjolnr (Phalanx-class)<br>Monitors: LCAM-01XB Dominion (Archangel-Class)

Praetorian Century  
>— 1st Praetorian Galaxy (Mjolnr Marines  Spec Ops)  
>— 2nd Praetorian Galaxy (Mjolnr Marines  Spec Ops)  
>— Special Mobility Galaxy (Aerospace  Mixed Mobile Forces)  
>— Special Defensive Galaxy (Spec Ops  NEST / Strategic)

Samurai Century  
>— 1st Samurai (Gundams)<br>— 2nd Samurai (Battlemechs)  
>— 3rd Samurai (Infantry)<br>— 4th Samurai (Infantry)

National Guard Century  
>— Mjolnr Battlemech Forces<br>— Mjolnr Mobile Armor  
>— Mjolnr Mobile Forces<br>— Mjolnr Aerospace Forces

Genetics Program Century  
>— 1st GARM Battlemech Guards Galaxy<br>— 5th GARM Mobile Forces Galaxy  
>— 8th GARM Infantry Forces Galaxy<br>— 10th GARM Infantry Forces Galaxy

Special Research Division (Century)  
>— Mad Scientists Galaxy (Mixed Mobile Forces)<br>— 33rd Development Group (Infantry)  
>— 82nd Airborne (Infantry)<br>— 555th Air Cavalry (Infantry)

-x-x-x-

2nd Legion (Starborne)  
>Commanding Officer: Star Admiral Minako Sahalin (Multimage  Zeon-captured Sahalin Bloodheritage)  
>Warship: MHW-2291 Golden Phoenix (Phalanx-class)<br>Monitors: SCHM-000 Girty Lue (Girty Lue-class), Ophanim (Archangel-class)

Sound of Silence Century  
>— (Battlemech)<br>— (Infantry)  
>— (Infantry)<br>— (Infantry)

Black Sheep Century  
>— (Conventional Air)<br>— (Infantry)  
>— (Infantry)<br>— (Infantry)

Ghost River Century  
>— (Mixed Mobile Forces)<br>— (Infantry)  
>— (Infantry)<br>— (Infantry)

Riders On The Storm Century  
>— (Aerospace)<br>— (Infantry)  
>— (Infantry)<br>— (Infantry)

Rose For Epona Century  
>— (Ground Armor)<br>— (Infantry)  
>— (Infantry)<br>— (Infantry)

-x-x-x-

3rd Legion (Terran Guard)  
>Commanding Officer: Star Admiral Jin Kojima (Multimage  Earth Federation defector Kojima Bloodheritage)  
>Warships: None<br>Monitors: Hyperion, Redland (Sendai-class), Absinthe (Flame Eater-class), Vladivostok (Riga-class), Thrones (Archangel-class)

Century of Stalwart Guards  
>— (MS)<br>— (Infantry)  
>— (Infantry)<br>— (Infantry)  
>— (Infantry)<p>

Century Of American Guards  
>— (Battlemechs)<br>— (Ground Armor)  
>— (Infantry)<br>— (Infantry)  
>— (Infantry)<p>

Century Of European Guards  
>— (Mixed Mobile Forces  Aerospace)  
>— (Ground Armor)<br>— (Infantry)  
>— (Infantry)<br>— (Infantry)

Century Of Asian Guards  
>— (MS)<br>— (Infantry)  
>— (Infantry)<br>— (Infantry)  
>— (Infantry)<p> 


	11. Steel Rain

(Joker's Wild, Set 2, Chapter 11: Steel Rain)

(14 April CE 73, 1000 Hours Lima (UTC-7))  
>(Unidentified location, Colorado, Old United States territory)<br>(Coordinates: 40°41'48.08"N, 104° 9'48.84"W)

"Okay, here's the tricky part to any kind of an E&E scenario," Ghost Instruction Benjamin Jones said to his rescuee. "Where to go when you've escaped the immediate danger zone."

"South America would be too far, correct?" Lacus asked.

"Yes and no," Benjamin answered. "Yes, a straight hike would be way too far at a walking pace. The war would probably be over before we made it to Mexico City, to be perfectly truthful, much less to the Panama Canal. Star Admiral — erm, Division Commander Centara isn't going to drag this one out."

"Okay, shorelines? How far are we from the Pacific Ocean?"

"Also no go," Benjamin answered quietly. "We'd have to cross the Rocky Mountains, which at this time of year are hit-and-miss snowed over. You'd freeze to death before we made Oregon."

"Rivers?" Lacus asked, starting to run out of ideas.

"Definitely an option, especially if we can E&E long enough for the boss to put down some riverine or Hover assets. Going by basic geolocation I've done over the past day, we're in Weld County, Colorado territory, in the old United States area. If we head southeast, we'll stumble across the South Platte River soon enough."

"Can we really make it?" Lacus asked.

"This isn't my first evade and escape, milady," Benjamin admitted. "And a lot of those prior E&Es were run against tangos far better equipped and trained to deal with Ghosts than the Earth Alliance."

"Ah," she half-gaped after the Ghost began his slow march south down the dusty old road that ran in front of the house.

In terms of marching, Lacus admitted that Benjamin was not as fast as she had remembered seeing troops in old war films, but he wasn't exactly ambling along at an unmeasurable pace. It was a steady march, and the rhythm began setting into her bones as the Ghost walked along the old dirt road. Some time after the first intersection they turned at, Lacus fell asleep to the slow trudge of armor on road.

-x-

(2 hours 15 minutes later)

"Ah, whuh, where — how?" Lacus asked blearily, wondering why her ears were covered by something — until she remembered that she was wearing a headset with microphone.

"Sleep well, kid?" a voice asked her.

"Huh? Benjamin?" Lacus asked. "Was I asleep?"

"Yeah, little over two hours," Ghost Instructor Jones answered. "I decided not to wake you, seeing as how we have had some rather unsavory company for the past ninety minutes or so."

"Company? The Earth Alliance?" In direct answer to her question, their position was overflown by a pair of transport helicopters, flying low and slow in an attempt to spot the unseen. "Those?"

"And some wheeled troop transports about an hour ago. QRF, looking to try to catch us napping at the farmhouse." Benjamin chuckled mirthlessly. "What that I was on a solo infiltration operation, I could easily turn this area into a randomized death trap for these poor Earth Alliance sods, make them waste resources and manpower trying to find me instead of fighting the Division Commander. Still, even without firing a shot I'm doing the same thing."

Another pair of helicopters flew over the area, though this pair was not troop transports, they were the much sleeker and armed attack helicopters. "All this, for us?" Lacus asked breathlessly.

"No, an old crotchety Ghost such as myself doesn't rate this kind of ire," Benjamin admitted. " 'Specially since the most I did was shoot up a BC spec ops cell. The way the Blue-heads operate, who I killed is replaceable for a buck-ninety-five and a song. No, these pukes are after you, which is why I'm doing this slow and steady to get us both out of here alive."

"Where are we?" Lacus asked, indulging that part of her curiosity as a way to avoid the dread of thinking about being a hunted lady.

"Due south of the not-quite-a-village of Keota, Colorado, heading for the just-barely-a-village Raymer. Much as I guessed, we're in Weld County, Colorado. According to my mapping system, we have 1087 kilometers to go to our destination, counting straight-line as-the-crow-flies travel."

"Oh," Lacus groused, given those names meant nearly nothing to her. Outside of a couple of the major cities in the Atlantic Federation territories, she knew nearly nothing about the geography of North America. Not for a lack of learning on her part, but a lack of interest about the subject in PLANT territories. "That might take a while."

"I expect it will, we might be halfway there in ten days or so," Benjamin admitted. "As much as it will distort your perception of time, you may want to sleep while possible. This will be a long, boring march."

Lacus was silently dreading his comment, but expected it just the same. "You wouldn't happen to have anything to listen to, would you?"

Benjamin was silent for several paces before he answered. "I listen to a randomized mix of everything from classical to punk to deep electronica to hardcore metal to pop, and everything in between. If you want to listen in, be prepared to hear it all and then some more."

-x-x-x-

(14 April CE 73, 2030 Hours Zulu)  
>(Mobile Forces Hangar, <em>Guild II<em>-class Dropship _Betty's Reclaimer Service_)

"This is… unusual," Luna half-complained. "I mean, why bother with the treads as a main weapon, when you have these?" she waved toward a pair of Omnimechs in their cubicles, undergoing final equipment checks.

Meyrin looked closely at the Omnimech her sister had been waving at. It was a Blood Asp Omnimech, larger than anything ZAFT turned out by a good degree, but not the largest piece of hardware in the Magi arsenal by far. "I know that 'mech," the operator said after she realized the paint job was distinctive. She looked around for a moment, and found the pilot hanging out of the left torso magazine access hatch. "Woody! Yo! You busy?"

"Not really!" the pilot shouted after he waved at the two ZAFT officers. Once clear of the ammo panels on his machine, he took one of the personnel / light freight elevators down to the ground.

"What were you doing?" Luna asked quizzically. For all that she flew the ZAKU and had made a name for herself in it, she didn't do maintenance on it. ZAFT had dedicated mechanics for the MRO routines…

"Oh, just switching out my missile magazines. The Crimson Guard is going in ahead of this combined arms formation, and our job is to delay, obfuscate, and harass any force that might try to close on the Dropship while unloading. I'm putting Tandem-charge missiles in the short-range launchers, to cause more damage to MS, and Thunder LRMs in the -15 racks so I can deploy field-expedient minefields."

"Oh," Luna said in a half-squeak. Shiho Hahnenfuss had touched on the possibility of minefields when facing the Magi / Mendel forces, but Luna had brushed it off as nonsensical. What good would a minefield be against a Mobile Suit with 300 meters jumping range, she had asked in training courses long past. Now, with the possibility of field-deployed minefields, it didn't matter where the Magi set up initial minefields, they could reinforce or deploy new fields wherever they wanted. That prospect, minefields at whim, was rather frightening to Luna.

"Anyway, how goes?" Woody took a seat on a crate of something — it was placarded 'explosives 1.1' which made it military field-grade explosives — and arched his back to stretch it.

"Just looking around while the ships get into proper orbits," Meyrin admitted. "Luna had a question for you. Go ahead, sis," Meyrin waved her on.

Luna half-hesitated, mainly on the scraggly nature of this 'mechwarrior, though she could easily recognize him from the Battle of the Gigafloat — the same 'mech they were standing near had scrapped down a lot of Blue Cosmos mercenaries.

"Erm, why the tanks?" Luna asked after she forced herself past her hesitation.

"Why not?" Woody asked in counter. "I mean, why wouldn't we use them?"

"Well…" and to silently finish her thought, she waved at the blood-red Blood Asp towering over them.

"Oh!" Woody pointed to the Blood Asp in response. "That is 29.4 million C-bills, and the tank in the cube next to it is 5.7 million c-bills. Three of those tanks, competently piloted, can destroy my poor Blood Asp pretty easily; four of them with average crews can destroy the Blood Asp with no losses on their part. Not even the same cost, big difference in battle results."

"Really?" Luna asked with clear skepticism to voice. One thing that had been pounded into her head during training was how pathetic the Linear Tank was, but these…

"No joke," Woody answered deadpan. "That chunk of badass and tracks is a Von Luckner IIM, the Gauss Rifle variant. Four of those tanks can ram a full ton of nickel-plated iron slugs into a single target in roughly twelve seconds. I don't know about ZAFT, but there ain't all that many pieces of walking armor that can absorb a full ton of supersonic steel whoopass and remain battlefield functional. And that's just the main gun. The closer you get, the nastier it gets, and it usually has buddies."

"I'm not buying it," Luna said defiantly. "The Earth Alliance and its predecessors have been building tanks for centuries, and they can't do a portion of what you're saying."

"Those beer cans?" Woody snorted. "C'mon, over here. I'll show you." Woody jumped up from the explosives crate and headed over to the elevator. Luna was quick to follow, if for no reason than to see Woody flatten the tanks underfoot.

"Another sim run?" Meyrin asked as the elevator headed up toward the cockpit.

"Yeah. You both should be able to fit in behind the seat, so you both can watch." When the elevator stopped, he walked up to the cockpit and hauled open the forward hatch. "After you two."

Luna stepped up first and looked inside. "Eh, you first, Meyrin," she decided.

"No problem," the MS Operator climbed in without any reservation and wormed her way in behind the seat. "Am I standing on a case of grenades again?"

"No, that is my fishing tackle box," Woody admitted. "The grenades are on the other side, for when the fishing rod doesn't cut the mustard."

"You've done this before?" Luna asked.

"Yeah, it's fun watching what it looks like to an Omnimech pilot," Meyrin admitted. Luna sighed and climbed in next to her sister, followed quickly by Woody who took the primary seat and connected his neurohelmet to the computer systems.

"Monkeys are not allowed to fling it," Woody said with a perfectly straight face. It was a different activation phrase from the last time Meyrin had been in his machine, due to security requirements for changing activation codes in the machines.

"What?" Luna asked, wondering what the nonsensical phrase meant.

"Voice authorization confirmed. Welcome mechwarrior Woody," the machine answered after a few moments.

"Computer, initiate training simulation, set training scenario Inglebard Plains armor match. Scale to single 'mech only."

"Simulation commencing, three, two, one, now." the system declared as his screens lit up.

"Inglebard Plains is a moderate training round, and used to break new meat in on the challenges of anti-armor work. It's one 'mech per five tanks, with the cost factor still in the favor of the 'mech. And I don't expect to win."

"Where are they?" Luna asked, looking over his control panel for a radar system.

"There," Woody pointed to a couple blips on the radar. "Just over that ridge — " He paused as the 'mech simulated some hits with a jolt, since it wasn't completely locked down for this exercise. "Damn LRMs, and a lot of 'em — oh shit," he swore when he saw the enemies physically. "Simulator must have a sense of humor today. Three Von Luckner IIM, two Manticore IIM. Definitely ain't going to win this one." He answered the LRMs with his own LRMs, but hammering on them weapon for weapon was not stopping the tanks.

"They're not stopping," Luna gaped. "Why?"

"See? Hit a linear tank once, it lights up. Hit a Magi tank once, it lights you up." To point of fact, two of the three Von Luckner spoke out against his ministrations, gauss rifle slugs slamming into his 'mech with significant fury going by the jolt in the viewscreen image. "Brace for it," Woody warned them as he lit off his other weapon systems, his gauss rifle and collection of Medium Lasers. For all his own veterancy, and his pinpoint accuracy putting laser and slug into one of the Manticore IIM tanks, it still didn't stop.

"How — holy hell!" Luna half-squeaked when Woody dumped both LRM 15 racks into the other Manticore IIM and achieved no notable result except some twisted metal hanging off the tank in question. "How much abuse can one of those things take?"

"I can hit these things in the front plate four times with the gauss rifle and still not damage the internal structure or critical components behind that armor. That's usually the limit, though. Still, four solid hits against something shooting back against you? Good freaking luck — aww, shit," Woody broke off his thought with a swear. "There goes my Gauss Rifle. One of those Von Luckner just got lucky."

Luna simply gaped at what she was seeing — all five tanks were fighting hard, taking punishment above and beyond what her ZAKU could withstand, and returning accurate fire of their own with coilguns, large lasers, long-range and short-range missiles. The sheer throw weight from the enemy units was adding up quickly as every damage indicator on Woody's control panels steadily crept from green to yellow to red and then blacked out.

The simulation continued a full forty seconds past the point at which Woody lost his Gauss Rifle. It was ended by one of the Von Luckner IIM main battle tanks, where a burst of SRMs had entered Woody's right torso and cooked off the missile reloads inside. The explosion sundered his ammo reserves, which destroyed that half of his 'mech and left him without any effective weapon.

"Simulation ended, battle time one minute thirty-two seconds. Mechwarrior Woody, no kills against combined enemy force veteran armor crews. Machine Crimson One combat disabled, mechwarrior ejected clean and expected captured by enemy force," the battle computer reported.

"Get the message, milady Hawke?" Woody asked of the pilot Hawke standing behind her.

"I hear you," Luna answered immediately. For a machine that was expected to rip up a ZAKU in common combat expectations, being disassembled by a small pack of tanks was not particularly embarrassing, but an object lesson worth remembering.

"Now, keep in mind, the Von Luckner IIM is known among the Magi as a Main Battle Tank. It's not the worst piece of armor on the field, and it's not the best. Lesson over," Woody said. "You two up for hitting the Sniper Bar and Grill?"

-x-x-x-

(14 April CE 73, 2100 Hours Zulu)  
>(Mobile Forces Hangar, Warship<em> Mjolnr<em>)

"Okay, you sold me. What exactly do I need to look at right now?" Legion Commander Lightbringer requested of his subordinate.

"We got some mercs coming in, leftovers from Sigma Mercenaries, but they have some real strange equipment that I don't recognize. I was wondering if you knew what it was." Wendy Barus, Angel Two, thumbed the door release button and stepped aside to allow her commanding officer to enter first.

"Okay, which units?" Lightbringer asked before his gaze crossed a series of mobile suits with very unique equipment and modifications. "Oh, you wouldn't happen to mean those guys?" He waved a finger at the units in question. Of the other machines in the hangar, only one of those machines had anything out of the ordinary — a rare RX-78 GP-02F incendiary combat Gundam.

"Yes, that is who I mean."

"I know those guys," Gerald admitted after a few moments. "I used to interface with the Sigma Mercenaries forces, bit of a special project for the Empress. Those six rare machines belong to a subunit that is part of what is called the Sigma Network: affiliated units that are not strictly mercenary units like the actual Sigma group, but kind of ringer formations that are willing to work with the Sigma forces to earn a few bucks on the side. These guys, specifically, are part of the Anaheim Special Operations Group, essentially elite test pilots that are here with the small Anaheim Electronics contingent. Follow?"

"You mean kind of like how Raynor's Raiders was an affiliate in the Sigma Network until James Raynor disbanded the unit some time ago?" Wendy asked for clarification. Raynor's Raiders happened to be the most famous of the affiliates, and easily one of the most destructive that Sigma One occasionally called upon to do some really nasty jobs that required large amounts of firepower and battle cruisers.

"Oh yeah, same concept. So, what exactly is bugging you about these guys?" Gerald asked after considering it.

"I recognize each of their machines, even the extremely rare pair that they have, Jagd Doga and Gundam Gerbera, but I've been looking at that rifle that they all have and I don't have a bloody clue what it is."

Each of the six machines carried the exact same rifle, the only difference between the machines was the painting on the rifle in the machines themselves. The individual primary weapons to the machines — such as the beam gatling for the Jagd Doga, the beam bazooka for the GP02F / Urban Combat type, or the beam machinegun for the Gelgoog Jaeger, had been relegated to secondary weapons in contrast to the rifle each carried. The rifle in question was not small, easily longer than the mobile suits that carry it were tall, and it looked like it had an energy charging pack on the bottom. If it was some kind of ballistic weapon, why exactly would it need an energy pack?

"Those rifles are Sigma special. Sigma Allied Manufacturing only makes about three dozen of those a year, and demand for them is ape shit high. It's a special rail sniper rifle based on the old prototype Star League heavy rail gun. It will throw a quarter-ton rail slug some 55 kilometers as its max range, provided the mobile suit in question can actually get that far of a line of sight."

"That is almost as bad as the old Longbow Armor Sniper Rifle," Wendy judged. The main difference, though, was that the Longbow was designed for use by armored infantrymen and used antimatter as its main propellant. The weapon they were looking at was significantly lower technology, and a lot less prone to ammunition explosions that could cause significant damage to the terrain if anybody struck the Longbow rifle rounds.

"Unless you are a Master Executor, the Longbow is simply advertisement and sex appeal," Gerald scoffed at the thought of that ancient sniper rifle in use. "These are a shit-ton more practical and a lot less expensive to operate."

Wendy nodded her understanding of the matter at hand, now that someone had explained to her what those rifles were. Six machines, two technical Gundam machines, two variants of the venerable Gelgoog, the aforementioned Jagd Doga, and a Serpent to give them extended mobility, and you had a unit of six bad ass snipers that hailed from a special development group that was already on the universal do-not-fuck-with list. That these guys also did the occasional contract work for Sigma Mercenaries simply added to their street credit.

"Does anyone have production rights to that rifle?"

"I can't say for sure," Gerald admitted. "I know the original designer is long dead, that rifle was designed way back in the beginning days of the mercenary unit. I think his name was Jeff Evans if I remember correctly. Brilliant engineer and tinkerer. Only the good ones die young, it's the hard asses that live forever."

"Coming from you, that must be a serious complement." Wendy giggled at the derisive snort that Gerald let fly with. "I wonder, if Anaheim Electronics is involved, if they purchased the right to manufacture the rifle under license. I can think of a few creative uses for a rifle of that nature."

"If they did, it would be a serious coup. Manufacturing rights for that rifle have been very closely held by Sigma, to the point that they conducted a full-on assault operation against a Dark Moon manufacturing company to prevent its mass production and dissemination."

"250 kilograms slug out to 55 kilometers," Wendy repeated. "It must be the 50-caliber sniper rifle of the mobile suit world."

"At least they are on our side," Gerald admitted. "There have been a couple times where I was on the wrong side of a Sigma Mercenary sniper, and in both cases the only thing that saved my ass was luck."

"So where are we going to put these teams?" Wendy asked.

"I think I will assign two machines to each of the _Archangel_-class ships."

-x-x-x-

(15 April CE 73, 0015 Hours Zulu)  
>(North Atlantic, near the G-I-UK Gap)<p>

"Conn, sonar, no contacts registered bearing 2-0-5. Starting to think we might have scared them out of the puddle."

"Sonar, conn, acknowledged." Captain Luyties went back to reading over the transcripts of the latest political crossfire from above the waves. If there was nothing around for him to hunt, the least he could do would be to keep an eye on the political situation above in case he needed to start taking extraordinary actions as authorized by the King.

If nothing else, the various dispatches and transcripts made for very entertaining reading material to the captain. One thing was for sure, there were some very interesting personalities running the show up top, and they weren't afraid to pull out all the stops in the personal attacks to get their point across. In particular, star Admiral Wayne Centara's personal attack on Lord Djibril was only overshadowed by the necessity of giving such attack. Despite the absolutely nasty makeup job, this Lord Djibril knew enough about terrorist operations to actually make some real noise by holding a gun to the head of Lacus Clyne. Despite the fact that it did not work in the end, it was still a very ballsy move for a terrorist trying to operate from the shadows.

The Zodiac Alliance had not so far officially begun their combat operations, but Captain Luyties thoroughly expected to encounter a ZAFT _Vosgulov_-class submarine or two in the coming days. If the Earth Alliance wanted to rage against the entire planet, the very least the rest of the planet could do would be to throw a party in their honor.

The complete lack of reaction from the Emirate of Orb was completely unsurprising to the Scandinavian captain. Given the necessity of having five ruling families, the Emirate tend to suffer from a very deep-seated split personality disorder in political terms. One or more of the factions tended to support the Earth Alliance, at least one faction tended to side was ZAFT, and the actual present head of state tended to side with Mendel. It made for very confusing politics, very confusing position statements, or in this case a complete lack of a position. If anything, Captain Luyties expected that the small island nation would very likely sit this matter out, and simply wait to see who won and who paid the price.

After the captain flipped the paperwork over to the next page, he made a rather unsavory discovery in his paperwork pile. Apparently, a certain radio officer had been using the official transmission bands to score himself some rather hard-core gay hentai pics. It wasn't that the captain really had anything to say about the pics, mainly given that decent porn material tended to crop up anywhere in a given fleet, he was more concerned about finding such pictures inside an official paperwork stack. Mildly unsettling, that. He figured he would not rip into the radio officer too badly, given it was probably an honest mistake of paperwork sorting while the ship was last up to periscope depth to communicate with the laser satellites.

With the picture folded up and stuffed in a pocket, the Captain stood up to go walk down to the radio room, but did not make it a full pace from his chair before the entire submarine jolted to some kind of impact.

"What the hell was that?" The executive officer asked.

"Conn, sonar, very hot noise in the water!" The sonar operator shouted loud enough they could be heard in the command center without the use of one of the intercoms.

The captain took five seconds to move from his desk to the sonar room. "I know it was hot, what the hell was it?"

"I don't know sir," Kenny answered immediately. "All I heard was a wide-bearing hot noise, a very loud rumbling, and a metric assload of what sounded like cavitation (1) from the north. It still sounds like there's a lot of disturbance still in the water, bubbles or debris or something like that. What's really funny is, the disturbance is real wide. It's covering something like five or six degrees on my sonar receptor, it's not small and it's not localized."

The captain was silent for several seconds, going over several considerations of what it could be. His initial thought was some kind of undersea seismic anomaly, but the sonar processing software would easily have understood that and reported it regardless how much noise it made. Given the jolt to the ship, it had to be some manner of explosive, but if it was a torpedo or depth charge the sonar troops would have picked it up before detonated. If it was some kind of new countermeasure being deployed by the Earth Alliance, it really did not make sense for them to start by deploying it in an area that they natively did not control to begin with. With those possibilities crossed off, that effectively left only historical weapons.

Once settled on the older devices, he went through a basic checklist in his mind of what it could be. The obvious ones were crossed off the mark – Torpedoes and mines were out of the list again for the consideration that any such device would've been detectable by the ship before it struck. Regular missiles were not an issue underwater, given that the submarine had to be surfaced before it can be targeted by anti-shipping missiles. Among anti-submarine weapons, that left depth charges, but here again it made no sense. The disturbance was too far away, too large, and way too much disturbance to be just a regular depth charge.

After a few moments of considering it, his mind came back to the word 'regular' in the phrase 'regular depth charge'. Naval history books were clear that special depth charges with nuclear warheads did exist, however those devices never saw actual combat. On the other hand, he figured it not beyond the realm of possibility that the Earth Alliance would dredge up such banned weapons and put them to use, especially against a superior foe that they could not track.

"Nuclear depth charge," Captain Luyties said aloud.

"What, sir?" Kenny asked after a few moments, staring at the captain in disbelief.

"Ancient Cold War weapon. Both sides had them, nobody ever used them. Nuclear depth charges, used to disrupt multiple submarines in a small area. The size of disturbance field tells me that whatever was detonated was fairly close to us, so now would be a damn good time to get out of here."

"That does not sound very friendly, sir," Kenny declared.

"No shit, sonarman." Without further word, the captain was out into the command center of the ship and he looked every bit as worried as everybody else in the attack center looked confused. "Helm, set your course zero – eight – zero and depth 500 meters. Increase speed to flank. Attack center, discharge four noisemakers and set their depth to 150 meters. Chief of the watch, signal battle stations."

"Battle stations! Battle stations! Rig ship for combat!" The chief petty officer on watch ordered over the ship's intercom.

Captain Luyties gave his crew 45 seconds to get into position and get everything locked down. In reality, it took the crew less than 30 seconds to get into positions and have all the pressure bulkhead sealed for damage control purposes. Once the ship was quiet, and the four noisemakers had been released, he decided an explanation as to why the ship was running home at a very high rate of speed was in order.

The captain keyed the growler phone that he was holding, set to all ship intercom, and raised it to his mouth. "Attention all hands, this is the captain. As per exigent circumstances protocols pertaining to the survivability of a Scandinavian warship, I have ordered the helm to turn course towards home, set our depth below common sonar detection ranges from surface contacts, and set full speed on the main propeller. The unusual jolt the ship just received some minutes ago, combined with wide-area cavitation in the water in the area of that detonation, leaves me not much choice but to assume that the Earth Alliance is now using nuclear depth charges as a counter to our superior submarine tactics. Because our ships are more vital to the defense of the Kingdom than the necessities of attacking Earth Alliance shipping, and because the Earth Alliance is very likely to hunt any amount of our subs with nuclear depth charges, I have decided to withdraw from the combat theater and return to port to assess further operations."

-x-x-x-

(15 April CE 73, 0230 Hours Zulu)  
>(Warship <em>Golden Phoenix<em>, Bridge)

"Conn, Helm, we have achieved a stable counter-rotational orbit. Starboard side weapon systems are now in range to the planet's surface."

"Helm, conn, acknowledged." Star Admiral Sahalin considered what her next move would be, given that she was not under any specific orders to withhold fire from the planet's surface in deference to any other event going on. Wayne had discussed taking several orbital passes around the planet and using mixed suborbital fire to eliminate any land-based or aircraft-based nuclear armaments that could be identified from orbit.

"Sensors, conn, any further readings on that nuclear event in the area of Heaven's Base?"

"Star Admiral, computer thinks it has a estimate on the weapon used as a one megaton nuclear depth charge. Since the first explosion, we've detected four similar explosions in the area, all a minimum of 750 kilotons, at least two of them a megaton or larger. Delivery mode appears to be Earth Alliance anti-sub aircraft based out of Northampton Air Force Base, Great Britain."

"And we are just beginning to pass mainland China. Can we shift the warship far enough north to take a pass at Northampton?" Minako asked after a moment of thinking about it.

"Aye aye, Star Admiral. I can have us in position to take the shot in roughly 35 minutes," the helmsman declared.

"Make it happen, helmsman. This is where we get to start our war, we get the start by grounding their anti-sub nuclear bombers."

"This war is going to be defined by creative ways to render the enemy's nuclear forces unusable," Division Commander Stanythe Agrippa commented dryly. "It's always the young ones that want to use the biggest toys."

"And it's going to be the big boys that show the little punks why they don't mess with daddy's big shotgun." Star Admiral Sahalin reached out to her command console and made a couple modifications to what was on the listing.

"Conn, sensors, contact from the planet's surface! Reading multiple anti-ballistic missiles launched and tracking on the _Golden Phoenix_ from an ABM battery in Western China."

"Weapons, conn, deploy capital lasers and capital missiles as intercept against enemy ABM launches. Suborbital, conn, deploy broadside ballistic weapons in suborbital strike against ABM battery."

"Conn, roger that," the weapons control officer answered immediately.

"Conn, suborbital, acknowledge fire order." The weapons officer for suborbital attacks entered a series of commands on her console, though she came to one conclusion pretty quickly and it was not a pleasant one. "Conn, suborbital, permission to use the Naval particle cannons in the suborbital strike as well?"

"Weapons, do you need those particle cannons to intercept the missiles?"

"Neg, they only have four missiles in the air so far. And these are big Chinese ABM brutes, not the smaller Russian ABM units. We can do these with the teleoperated missiles just as easily."

"Particle cannons are released. Fire as soon as you have a solution." Despite the overt threat to the ship from the ground forces, Star Admiral Sahalin was still not sweating being engaged. ABMs were designed to intercept ballistic missiles, which tended to be very soft targets in terms of damage resilience. In theory, and ABM missile would pose very little or no threat to a 5.8 million ton warship, though given the standing logic that the Earth Alliance was fishing for submarines using nuclear depth charges, it was not outside the realm of possibility that the Eurasian Federation would be fishing for space warships using nuclear tipped ABM missiles. Assholes would be assholes, inasfar as these things were counted.

" Firing Naval lasers," the weapons operator reported. "One hit, two hits, two missiles intercepted. Standing by until remaining ABMs go exo-atmospheric before I launch capital missiles." His logic was predicated on the thought that the capital missiles could not survive reentry, and were very unlikely to hit if they tried. However, once the ABM missiles were outside the atmosphere, they were fair game to be intercepted by the anti-shipping missiles.

"Conn, sensors, four more missiles launched from same battery. Count six live contacts in the air."

"Suborbital, status of firing solution?" Star Admiral Sahalin asked immediately. "It doesn't look like they're giving up, so we may need to put some smack down on them."

"Computer is chewing on it right now, as soon as it – greenlight!" The suborbital officer slammed her fist down on the fire control button to release the guns to fire. The primary battle computer system had active control of the weapons grid, so as soon as released by the suborbital station, twelve 300 millimeter Naval autocannons and twelve medium naval particle cannons fired in series from forward to the rear, all the guns aimed toward the planet below and specifically at a Chinese ABM battery that was now being used by the Eurasian Federation in an attempt to stave off the inevitable.

From fire command to arrival of the first shots was only roughly 2 seconds. The naval particle cannons tended to be particularly fast to bring down large amounts of damage on lighter targets, but were not so effective at dealing with hardened targets such as bunkers or even some very large old-school surface naval warships. In this case, however, the naval particle cannons had been targeted on the ABM installation radar units and several non-readily-identified buildings around the periphery of the facility, one of which included the primary and backup power generators. Technically, the naval particle cannons rendered the facility combat ineffective long before the ballistic autocannon rounds arrived.

Eleven seconds later, ten salvos consisting of four 300 millimeter naval autocannons slugs per salvo arrived at the old ABM facility. A pair of naval autocannons had fired on a slightly offset trajectory, the slugs encountered unusual turbulence on the way down through the atmosphere, and missed the facility by some five kilometers. The forty autocannons shells that did arrive on target proceeded to rip up the entire missile battery and support buildings, including the buried command center that was collapsed down into itself by the suborbital strikes on the ground above it. The only building on the facility that remained partially intact was the shower room, though fragmentation from several of the shells ripped through the walls and the Eurasian Federation personnel inside. No man lived to tell the tale of what went wrong.

"Conn, suborbital, initial damage estimate shows ninety-eight percent destruction in enemy facility. ABM battery is rendered combat ineffective. Should I conduct a follow-up strike?"

"Negative, looks like we silenced those missiles. No need to kill the cockroaches at this time. Recommend you pre-plot a firing solution on the air base in England, and as we approach I want sensors to start looking for targets of opportunity that we can use our naval fire on to help reduce the amount of targets will have to deal with on the ground."

"Conn, suborbital, aye aye." The chief warrant officer on the suborbital panel turned back to his controls and began plotting fire solutions based on historical maps of the intended air base.

"The history books show that, when conducting campaigns involving an entire planet and the space around it, the party that holds the suborbital reaches has a decisive advantage. Last I checked, the Earth Alliance does not have any warships up here anymore. That might be a problem for them," Star Admiral Sahalin said to the Division Commander.

Stanythe simply smiled at her declaration. "The only fair battle is a Circle of Equals. Anything else is subject to cheating, and last I checked it's only cheating if somebody reports it. And, since officially I am not here, I don't think I'll be reporting it."

"Well, since we are cheating without cheating, any pointers from the Division Commander of professional cheaters would be welcome," the Star Admiral said with a significant smile.

-x-x-x-

(14 April CE 73, 2300 Hours Lima (UTC-5))  
>(Colombian Forces Command, United States of South America)<p>

"Listening post five, listening post five, say again, repeat say again!" The radio operator sitting immediately behind Harrelson shouted into her microphone.

"Multiple contacts, enemy air and artillery strikes confirmed north and west of my position. No troop movements detected at this time, they may just be softening us up before they send in the ground troops."

"This just in from posts seven, nine, and ten." Edward Harrelson received the dispatches and began reading them over, though he suspected he knew what they said already. "If I didn't know any better, I would have thought they had this planned." A rather distinct note of sarcasm tinged the voice of the intelligence analyst.

"Makes perfect sense, at least to an Earth alliance puke." Harrelson folded up the dispatches from the listening posts and set them down on his desk. "As soon as our friends in the stars started threatening their ground positions, these guys cut loose with their wet dream campaign."

"Okay, sir, what's your take on this?" The Intel analysts asked.

"Speaking as a former professional asshole, ergo a former Earth Alliance officer, with everything lost in space and no way to prevent the Mendel forces from dropping serious firepower on the planet below them, I have a pretty clear reason to believe that the game is over for the Earth Alliance and its member states. At this point, any Earth Alliance officer would do his damnedest to make this painful for everybody involved, neutral parties, hostile parties, even the civilians under me might be taking some heat eventually. It's a combination of grand mal temper tantrum and scorched earth warfare policies."

"Kinda like Nazi Germany, at the end of the Europe campaign, where Hitler ordered the SS to burn it all to the ground so the Russians and the Americans wouldn't walk away with anything?"

"More than that, this would have been like Hitler ordering the SS to burn down Central America, South America, Switzerland, as well as occupied Europe, basically just to be a flaming dickhead about it."

"And ironically, this real brain trust commander they have, Lord Djibril, he might just be going out to attempt to beat Hitler's kill count." So far it had not made the news wires, but seismic stations around the planet had recorded the unmistakable earthquake-style signature of nuclear weapons that were detonated underwater. If the Earth Alliance was willing to start their naval campaign by way of nuclear depth charges, there was no telling how many more nukes they were willing to throw as part of their temper tantrum campaign.

"I don't think it will matter," Edward put that thought to rest. "If Mendel can get a ghost inside their decision loop to kill Lacus Clyne, they probably already have a ghost inside Djibril's decision loop. That walking bad makeup job has got to be shitting his brains out trying to find the ghost that's already targeted him."

"I kinda wish we had a couple ghosts, if for no other reason than to spot for our artillery units."

"We already know where their main assembly points are, and we already have their static defenses sighted in with artillery units. As soon as we get authorization from high command to cut loose, I want the linear artillery units to start throwing artillery back at their artillery and static defenses."

"You just got it," a different radio operator reported as she handed over a priority one message to Ed Harrelson.

Harrelson took several seconds to read over the message, then nearly 30 seconds to read it a second time and make sure he understood the wording properly. In matters such as this, a little nuance of grammar or wording could make all the difference in what he was or was not allowed to do, though in this case he had a fairly obvious wide-open authorization to end the threat and begin a draft plan.

"Radio one, begin issuing retreat orders to the listening posts. We know what's coming, no sense leaving them flapping in the breeze."

"On it, sir!" The number one radio operator turned back to her telephone set to begin issuing the orders.

"Radio two, call up the artillery forces and tell them that we have been cut loose. The major in command of the artillery Battalion will know exactly what to do." For now, Ed intended to rely on established plans, especially since he did not know if the enemy was already moving maneuver formations or if they were just softening his positions up with artillery.

"Will do, boss!" Corporal Sanders bent to his field phone and dialed in the number for the artillery Battalion in question.

"Radio three, call the special project unit, have Latifah and Joan readied for combat. When these guys begin their breakthrough, things are going to start getting very messy very quickly, and we will need our heavy hitters out front to flatline their assault."

"Looking forward to it, sir," the third radio operator announced.

"And I have the last," Harrelson said mostly to himself as he reached for his desk phone. After a quick ten-digit number, the phone began ringing.

"Colombian Corps command, how may I route your call?" the secretary / phone operator requested as soon as the call connected.

"Harrelson for General Krauss, priority one."

"Authenticate Kilo Uniform Yankee, please."

Edward Harrelson had to refer to his codebook for the authentication call back. Given that he was not normally in the business of operating the radios himself, he had not memorized most of the administrative-level authentication codes. "Authentication call back is zero whiskey bravo four."

"Authentication accepted," the phone operator acknowledged the proper code. "Patching you through to General Krauss now." The phone signal beeped four times before it went active again.

"This is Krauss," the general responded immediately.

"Harrelson at the intelligence Center," Ed identified himself.

" I heard somebody is putting up some fireworks in your area. My static cruise missile batteries are active, where do you want me to put the missiles?"

"Hold off on that thought, general. We do not know yet if this is a full attack or not, or even if this was something they planned. According to our observers, this is only part of their artillery forces and we don't have any movement in the enemy ground forces." Ed was quickly paging back and forth through notes they received so far, trying to make sense of what disconnected information he had. "Given how their forces are reacting differently, either something is wrong in their chain of command or two thirds of the forces are just not doing anything."

"Think a Bravo Charlie decided to go apeshit on his own after Mendel started firing on the planet?" General Krauss asked after a moment of considering it.

"Given their uneven artillery plan and the lack of movement in their ground forces, starting to look that way. Think we should go ahead and initiate our plans?" Harrelson asked for advice from the senior officer on deck.

"That would be our intention, our fault, their fault, nobody's fault, we are still going to jump the border and start dethroning BC. We planned for it, might as well make it a reality. I recommend we begin operations immediately."

Harrison looked up to his various intelligence analysts in the room. "Have any of their ground formations begun moving?"

"No, sir, not as of five minutes ago." The senior intelligence analyst flipped pages on his own note tablet. "If General Krauss is taking suggestions for cruise missile targets, I think I might have the location of their command post."

"Well, get on the phone to the cruise missile battery commander and give him the location. And while you're at it, throw a couple missiles at the staging areas for their defensive ground forces. No sense leaving them untouched." Harrelson turned back to his phone, and by extension the general on the far side line. "I have the team here getting ready to call up your cruise missile commander with a list of priority targets. If we are going to start, I suggest we go all out. Tanks, planes, rotors, the kitchen sink if one is available."

"I will make sure that the missile commander knows who to listen to for targets," the general acknowledged the possibility of a conflict of targeting priority. "Soon as I get off the phone here, I'm going to get my men moving. We've been waiting for this. It is time to liberate Central America from these assholes."

"I'll be going out on the Sword Calamity to help support the special research unit. Give me a radio call if you need assistance while I'm in the theater."

-x-x-x-

(15 April CE 73, 0500 Hours Zulu)  
>(Command Center, Warship <em>Mjolnr<em>, in low orbit around Terra)

"Conn, sensors, approaching firing funnel against North Dakota missile base."

"Suborbital, you are authorized to fire at will. I want those silos and missiles rendered inoperable or I want to know why." Division Commander Centara continued his work on his command panel, adjusting for structures and deployment timetables for the actual ground invasion forces. As much as the destruction of nuclear facilities and nuclear weapons was a priority and critical to the success of the invasion, effectively the entire action was in the hands of his Suborbital Officer.

"Way ahead of you, sir," Chief Warrant Officer Esmeralda Blake answered offhand, even as she was typing fire commands into her console.

Over the centuries of practice, there had become a mechanistic precision to the art of invading a planet, and the Magi had mastered that art to a significant degree. With millions of worlds of experience, the Magi had developed a winning formula for putting troops on the ground safely and in sufficient order and amounts to resist any initial attempt to repel the invading party. And, while it could be considered a caveat that anybody could readily read and understand the general flow of battle, few enemy commanders either did so or were confident enough to actually avoid making the common decisions that Magi forces capitalized on in invading a planet.

By the Magi playbook, the first step in taking a planet always involved the use of warships. Due to the sheer viciousness of Negaverse orbital defenses during the first and second phases of the Star Empire Wars, the Multimages had long ago abandoned unsupported invasion operations, instead always sweeping the way clear by using even a minor warship to draw fire and eliminate space defense stations. More to the point, having a warship available as a mobile fire support platform and staging platform for aerospace assets very easily turned the tide in the favor of the invading force, especially in situations where the enemy was heavily dug in and prepared to deal with regular artillery or ground-bound aerospace assets.

Also due to past experiences, the Magi had learned the hard way that the first task for a warship when preparing the ground for an invasion was always to target and eliminate enemy strategic assets – nuclear missiles, chemical and biological weapons, stockpiles of nuclear material, major ammunition depots that were not slated for immediate capture, and major troop concentrations such as enemy garrisons or maneuver formations. More than one invasion by the forefathers of Mendel had literally been erased off the face of the planet they were attempting to invade simply by overlooking enemy ballistic missile systems. Nothing could ruin a good landing operation faster than having five megatons of whoopass land on your formation partway through deploying out of your dropship.

And thus the necessity of a fire call from low orbit against the old North American missile base in Minot North Dakota. The warship _Golden Phoenix_ had already passed south of Minot on their first orbit, taking fire passes at and destroying almost all of the missile silos in the old United States territories of Kansas and Nebraska. On a slightly more northern pass, the warship _Mjolnr_ had deployed suborbital fire against naval and air force bases in the state of Washington, Idaho, Montana, and now in North Dakota, specifically targeting nuclear weapons bunkers in those locations to render those weapons unusable.

"Firing solution set, Minot North Dakota missile base, deploying weapons in three seconds." As soon as she began releasing fire commands to the guns, the guns began lashing out with particles and slugs at the surface. In sufficient quantity, the particle cannons were ample to break through the armored 'top hat' of the various silos, allowing other forms of damage to get in and cripple the missiles.

The cannon slugs took a total of twelve seconds longer to arrive on target, but in damage comparison the 300 millimeter naval autocannons were individually more powerful than three of the Medium NPPC that were mounted in the same area as the autocannons. With the 300 millimeters in action, twelve cannons on each side of the _Mjolnr_, each individual cannon was able to completely sunder one of the ancient concrete missile silos, or if not a direct hit then at least enough to render it unusable. The missiles contained within were not particularly shock resistant, and the sheer abuse of having half a ton of ordinance land on the silo or nearby at a speed well in excess of Mach 9 was easily ample to render her missile unusable or at least dangerous enough to prevent an attempt to fire.

"Preparing targeting systems, firing run number two," Esmeralda Blake declared. "Fourteen silo sets are rendered unusable in that attack."

"Continue as before, we have a lot more missile silos to eliminate." Wayne did not seem entirely concerned with the prospect of missing a missile or two, given that aerofighters were reasonably effective at eliminating missiles in high orbit before they could tip over and release their payload. Also, the individual command centers for the missile silos were considered a high priority target, and the elimination of the command center rendered all subordinate missiles unusable. It was technically overkill, but Wayne wanted to make sure that the missiles were not recoverable.

"Fourteen down, hundred thirty-six to go." Inside twenty seconds, she had firing solutions laid in on another fourteen missiles.

"For a fifteen minute window, you're cutting it a bit close," Empress Atrebas commented with a raised eyebrow.

"What we don't get, _Dominion_ will. They'll be doing a polar insertion into southern Canada and northern America. As they pass through towards rescuing the ghost and the singer, they can take a pass at what's left of the missile base." The division commander handed off to the Empress a note tablet with it is intended for structures and landings. "If you are seeing anything I'm not, milady, I'd like to hear about it."

"So far, everything is going better than expected." By Wayne's own estimation, the enemy ABM sites were supposed to have caused a lot more damage than they had. With the destruction of most of those defenses in the past two hours, resistance from the planet to low orbit had been near zero. A few enterprising missile cruisers from the Atlantic Federation had tried using themselves as mobile ABM platforms, but were quickly dissuaded with a couple bursts of naval particle cannon.

"I hate it when people say that, even my superiors. It means something, somewhere, is about to go wrong."

"Especially when the superiors say it," Rini agreed with her newest Division Commander. "Seriously though, nothing is out of the ordinary here. Everybody's gone back and forth through these plans, and thousands of years of experience have not been able to find anything particularly wrong. I guess we'll just have to put it to the test, see if the Earth Alliance has any surprises up their sleeve."

Activity on the bridge stopped briefly when the second salvo of naval fire reached out for the planet below. Eyes remained fixed to the individual telemetry camera monitors, watching with rapt attention as cannon slugs streaked towards the planet's surface below them.

In years to come, the shelling of the Minot North Dakota missile base from orbit would become both the single most celebrated military action in 100 years and the single most reviled use of military superiority, depending on who was asked their opinion about it.

-x-x-x-

(15 April CE 73, 0700 Hours Lima (UTC-7))  
>(South of Raymer, Colorado, old United States territory)<br>(Coordinates: 40°32'16.56"N, 103°50'25.26"W)

While Ghosts tended to hunt best at night, and move fastest at night, it had been discovered early on that transporting a protectee at night was not a wise move. While they were still technically invisible, the heat given off by a cloaked but exposed body created enough of a thermal gradient that the use of infrared cameras could detect the protectee. This had resulted in more than one botched rescue operation, until a 'Ghost Hunter' unit had been captured by the Magi and divulged this piece of trivia.

In so doing, the Negaverse had created the single largest shift in ghost methodology since the formation was founded before the Star Empire Wars. By operating a rescue mission at day, the heat given off by the protectee often blended into the daylight clutter and thermal gradients, and generally hostile forces were prevented from using IR viewers to search with due to solar warming. With no amplification, enemies had to fall back to searching visually (a failed policy against a Ghost), searching by contact (roughly as likely as finding an undocumented gold mine in Europe after the industrial revolution), or carpet bombing a suspected area.

"And they choose door number two," Benjamin said mostly to himself after he had a good look at the enemy formation sweeping through the unplanted fields.

"Say what?" Lacus asked quickly after moment, given the comment was properly heard but not readily understandable.

"Three ways for a non-Psionics force to find a ghost: visually, by contact, or by carpet bombing. Looks like they are searching for us to attempt to force us to touch one their units and reveal our position."

Lacus was silent for twenty seconds, considering what to do about it. "Do we get out of their way?"

"Not enough time to get south of their formation. We wait in this building, see if they attempt to bypass or attempt to search." Benjamin pressed himself into a corner of the abandoned farm house's great room, so as to minimize the likelihood of contact with an enemy that didn't know all the tricks of searching for a ghost.

True to Benjamin's estimate, the enemy infantry that was searching in a line sweep pattern did a completely professional entry of the house and cleared it, room by room, hidden space by hidden space, and even double checked certain rooms that appeared to have sustained occupancy recently. Benjamin and Lacus had taken care to make sure that the house looked like it had been resident to vagabonds in recent months, but nothing that would suggest occupancy within the past week.

After the troops were convinced the house was clear, top to bottom, they exit out the west side of the house and continued their line search. No Earth alliance trooper approached within two meters of Benjamin or Lacus, which meant there was no chance of hearing the pop star breathing or any manner of movement sound from Benjamin.

"Give them five minutes, then we move out. Still have a long way to haul and a short time to get there. I think today I'm going to put down perhaps thirteen or fourteen hours of march, rather than ten as I did yesterday."

"Is it always this close?" Lacus asked after a few minutes.

"Some days yes, some days no. Depends on how smart and how aggressive an enemy is."

Three more minutes elapsed, then Benjamin began the move. The hard part was always keeping an even pace, enough speed to make actual progress but not enough speed to chance disturbing the terrain and leave a trail that could be picked up by following units.

With no further contact in their area, Benjamin decided to relax into his automatic marching pace and allow his mind to cruise in the confines of his music playlist. Lacus would not immediately admit it, but she frequently did just exactly the same, especially given the wildly varying nature of the music that Benjamin listened to made for a very interesting introduction to forms of music that the international pop star was only marginally versed in. And very little of it metal music.

-x-

(Six hours later, north of the Costelloe Reservoir)

Given there was no particular reason for her to stay awake, Lacus had drifted off to sleep somewhere around 9 AM, and snapped herself awake again just slightly after lunch.

In this case though, she woke up to the sound of a very unusual mix of moderate drums, synthesizer music, and something that sounded like tribal drums in the haze of her waking up. Even still, she had to admit the rhythm was definitely catchy, and the opening lyrics of " 'Cause when you look into my eyes, you can see there is no disguise / don't be afraid to need someone, you don't have to be alone," reminded her a lot of some of the music that she was planning on writing in her spare time at the orphanage.

"What song is this?" she asked part way through one of the longer instrumental sessions, which was comprised mostly of percussion and synthesizer, though still rather catchy without being too overwhelming.

"Song's name is _Inspiration_, artist is Ian Van Dahl, and this version is specifically the Peter Lutz remix." Benjamin sighed heartily. "I find this version to be a lot smoother than the original."

"It's not overwhelming, unlike a lot of techno music."

"An old friend of mine once told me that the easiest way to properly understand electronic music is simply to let your mind go, don't focus on anything, and just listen to the song as a whole rather than focusing on something that would annoy you. It makes a lot of difference when you're in the right mindset."

Lacus took a few moments to consider the advice from the old ghost, and decided putting it to the test would be a good idea to verify if she could do it or not. "Do you have a stronger song that I could test on after this one?"

"I do," Benjamin used his neural interface control to scroll the playlist to a random section far down the list from Ian Van Dahl. Ironically, the first track that he recognized as electronica had a very appropriate title. "I have the next selected. Song's title is Strong, artist is Steller Project featuring Emilie Norenberg. I've had people tell me the song turns them off because the main synthesizer instrumental can sound oddly annoying. I absolutely love the vocals and the lyrics, and the background harmonic is definitely an interesting part."

When the song began, Lacus immediately understood what he was referring to with the possibly annoying synthesizer work. Lacus being Lacus, however, she was a person that natively could not hate in the classic sense, and even the annoyance faded into the experience as she put into practice what Benjamin recommended. To such a degree did she displace her focus, that the song played through its five minutes and change before she properly realized that she had simply absorbed it.

The next song in the playlist was much faster, much harder synthesizer work, something she immediately recognized as a product of 1980s United States 'Rock'. Figuring out the name of the song was simple enough in the chorus, since it spoke repeatedly about Mighty Wings, and once she dropped her focus to nothing related to the song — she was staring out over the reservoir nearby — she found that even such rock as she would never have before been caught dead listening to, she had no problem listening to now.

It was a weird thing, she silently admitted, that being in a crisis situation could change your opinion on the most trivial of prior decisions…

-x-x-x-

(15 April CE 73, 2000 Hours UTC)  
>(Taklimakan Desert, Old Chinese Territory, Eurasian Federation)<br>(Coords: 38°50'25.80"N, 81° 5'9.19"E)

"Reaper Element, Reaper Command," the star captain in command of Reaper Trinary gave his other pilots a wake-up call. "For those of you who have served in the Empire's military and yet never seen the home world of humanity, I welcome you to the skies above the cradle of humanity. For those of you who've been here before, welcome home."

"It is an honor to finally see the cradle," Reaper twenty-two said with reverence.

"Take a good look at it from up here, because for the next several weeks you'll be down in the mud or slightly above it. There's been some questions as to what peninsulas and islands we are to start our campaign on, but I can tell you for certain now that's not how this game is going be run. I am uploading the landing point information to your computers now; take a good hard look at the map, and get to know the major terrain formations in the area because we are not playing on a small strip of land today. We're landing out in the middle of their roasting-ass desert; we are completely inverting the playbook today."

"We're putting a legion of forces down in the middle of the Taklimakan desert? Are we freaking serious about this? There isn't a damn thing out here were talking about except sand and mountains." Reaper thirty audibly scoffed at the premise of putting down such a massive force in otherwise worthless terrain.

"This is a different war, Reaper Element. This is not our usual strike-and-liberate campaign, we are here to take territory and hold territory, and in the process we will use every advantage we have to eliminate the enemies by attrition. We are here to bleed Blue Cosmos and their Earth Alliance benefactors. To win, we need to make it as bloody as humanly possible. The old playbook was not written for such campaigns."

Even as he spoke, Reaper Element began the process of entering the atmosphere, an action which forced the pilots to take their mind off the natural beauty of the planet below them and focus it back on their flying. "Reaper Command, this is Hard Case, no identified enemy major resistance in landing zone. Continue your speech when you pass the ionosphere."

-x-

"Hard Case, this is Nifty Dolphin, first wave Dropships have begun landing entry. Ten minutes to the ground."

Century Commander Carlos Michaels picked up his microphone and keyed the talk button. "Hard Case acknowledges your traffic. As soon as you get your teams on the ground, get your engineering units out to start laying runway. Decisive airpower and clean landing and takeoff is going to be an absolute requirement to this campaign. Fighting across these mountains, he who has the best mobility is going to win."

The initial landing, what would technically be called a beachhead if this was a shore invasion, was always the critical part of any manner of naval invasion, be it from space or across the seas. In this case, however, it was also pathetically uncontested to the point of being an administrative action, not really any form of combat maneuver. With the outright destruction of enemy ABM batteries and a goodly portion of their leftover surface-to-air missile systems that once guarded the Peoples Republic of China, the Eurasian federation literally lacked the necessary resources or weapons systems to threaten the Dropships and fighters as they entered the atmosphere.

Of course, this matter was not so much about the landing as it was the actual combat to come. The lessons of wars in the past had taught the Magi the necessary steps to put troops on a ground with little or no resistance. It was always the phase after the troops landed where matters were decided.

"Command, sensors, reporting second brace of Dropships have entered the atmosphere. All ships appear to be on course for their designated landing zones. No major enemy weapon systems have been detected in the landing area or within firing range to our landing descent course."

"What weapon systems are you seeing?" Carlos asked offhand, wondering exactly what the Eurasians had offer in this case.

"They have some warship radars in the Indian Ocean, and Reaper Element reports they keep getting hit-and-miss signals from several surface-to-air missile systems, but nothing major. We took our time and made sure we destroyed all the ABM systems and their major ground-based SAM systems, so I think we're safe for now."

"Don't think, keep a lookout. It only takes one puke with a nuclear-tipped surface-to-air missile to ruin our day permanently."

-x-

"Commodore Freeman, we are now beginning stage one reentry."

"All landing support systems are active, armor temperature is holding steady. Upgraded cooling grid appears to be doing the job. Here's to hoping it holds," the chief maintenance controller reported.

"All right guys, this run is for the boss and for the boss' disciples. And for those sad souls that are in the possession of the Earth Alliance Extended program. As soon as we're done securing the landing zone, we go mobile on a frag operation to go clean out some of the extended facilities. Once we begin, we have to hit him hard and fast, or they might try destroying evidence."

"We'll get them cleaned out, sir," his new executive officer answered.

"Hell, sir, you ask nicely and we would help you charge the gates of hell with a bucket of spit." The radio operator made an adjustment to his console, though after a moment he slipped his headphones off and hung them over the edge of his chair rail. "Passing through the ionosphere. Can't hear shit if it was banging off the antenna right now."

"And so our campaign begins," Captain Freeman says with a smile. "_Ophanim_ and _Dominion_ have their own series of facilities to capture. We just have to make sure that, along the way, we're helping the rest of the invasion."

"Conn, engineering, reporting hull temperature is presently below nominal reentry. All systems operating above expectations." A couple adjustments to his console helped improve the cooling effect of the new high-power heat sinks installed. "Reentry time expectation eight minutes thirty seconds."

"Helm, alter course to achieve area landing at the northern part of the drop zone. Until the rest the ships have landed and we have ample security forces out, will use the _Thrones_ as a sentry along the northern highway." Commodore Freeman was referring to the old G217 highway that eventually led straight to a large industrial center that was used primarily as population housing and fuel refining.

"Altering course now," the helmsman answered, since changing the landing zone in that fashion would effectively mean changing the descent trajectory only a half-degree at this distance.

-x-x-x-

(15 April CE 73, 2100 Hours UTC)  
>(Arkangelsk Province, Old Russian Territory, Eurasian Federation)<br>(Coords: 63°48'31.56"N, 36°57'21.37"E)

"Command, this is Weasel Zipper Six, atmosphere entry has been achieved. Ejecting ordinance heat shields at this time." To survive the nasty temperature of reentry without cooking off, the twenty tons of ordnance carried by the Fireball Aerofighters had been fitted with cellular heat shields that protected them from extreme overheating. In this fashion, the fighters could be launched from the warships in orbit, enter the atmosphere with a full combat load, and deploy their weapons to ground targets without the hazard of those weapons cooking off partway through reentry. The heat shields were not normally left on the craft, due to the complete bollocks job they tended to do to aerodynamic control of the craft during flight.

"Weasel Zipper element, flight control, confirm target area is clear for landing."

The unit's old hand had the appropriate answer there. "Command, Zipper eleven, no contacts minimum 2-0 kilometers radius landing zone center. Second star moving east to verify urban centers."

Even if there were no actual forces in the direct vicinity of the landing zone, there was still threats at hand. Some of the heaviest and nastiest surface-to-air missile systems ever engineered and put into combat service had originated in the geopolitical territory that the Eurasians knew as old Russia. More than once in the past, those same SAM systems had been used against the Magi with alarming success (they were, after all, very big missiles).

"Roger that, Zipper eleven. Good hunting," the flight controller for his unit responded.

"All right, boys, five kilometers spacing between points, snap to heading zero – five – five, 10,000 meters above ground, Lock your ECM's active and crank those radars up the full wattage. If it so much as farts in our area of control, I want to know what it had for dinner," Star Commander Louis Thompson ordered of his subordinate pilots.

"Got your wing, sir," Pilot Officer Emilio Velasquez answered after a moment. "Not seeing anything in the immediate vicinity, you think the enemy has some leftovers like what the mercs in Indonesia encountered?"

"Those were older Crotale missile systems and Shilka self-propelled guns. In all reality, weapons like that would be hard-pressed to threaten light transport choppers like what we use. I'm more worried about their heavy SAM systems like the S-300 and S-400 major SAM systems, you know the ones that could double over as anti-ballistic missile systems? Even if those things don't use modern or advanced explosives, something that big hitting one of our fighters is going cause a hell of a lot of damage."

"Yeah, I read you, about like getting hit by a flying telephone pole with a rocket strapped to it. No matter how you add the numbers up, that some bad news to play with."

"Eleven, one, reporting formation is online with search radars active. So far so clean."

"You think we've gone to throw a party, boss, and that the Earth Alliance is not going to show up to the festivities?" Pilot Officer Velasquez asked.

"If you want to be specific, they could be real smart and throw their hands up in surrender before the shooting begins. That said, I'm not expecting them to be smart. If they have assets in the area, give them a few minutes to wake it and shake it, then they'll use them on us."

No sooner than the Star Commander finished his sentence than his radar warning system began throwing messages. "Speaking of the devil, sir," Zipper fourteen said heartily. "And your predictions are a bitch, sir. Tracking radar identified as S-300PMU tracking radar array. Radar signals are well above tracking values, he knows we are here."

"Another day, another crisis. Seventeen, eighteen, track down that son of a bitch and go sniper (2) on them. Fifteen, sixteen, you two are the designated frag bait for this one. Rest of formation will hold back while you guys bait him and smoke him."

"Fifteen acknowledges orders," the said pilot responded. "Sixteen, check left," he said before the pilot rolled his aircraft left towards a northern compass heading. By making it look like the mere act of turning a search radar on was a threat, he hope to fool the enemy missile battery commander into pulling the trigger and thereby revealing his position to the rest of the unit.

To make the rest of the formation fall in line with the illusion, the other pilot elements split up into their customary two-man teams and began maneuvering almost at random to help solidify the illusion. Never mind that the missile itself could be construed as an actual threat, the purpose of this exercise was to create the expectation in the enemies' ranks that it actually was a crippling threat, when most Fireball pilots expected to survive such a hit.

The illusion paid off. As soon as the formation broke up and began maneuvering, all their radar receivers began detecting the rather distinctive emanations of the missile guidance radar – the S-300 system used several different radar sets, one for early warning, another for tracking, and a third radar or actual missile guidance. The missile itself did all the dirty work, but it still had to have some kind of a baseline signal to get within vicinity of the aircraft in question.

"Bird's in flight! Bird is in flight! Count one, count two missiles!" Fifteen and sixteen had begun maneuvering immediately, though it did not take them long to realize that they weren't the targets. "That missile is not on us!"

"Oh shit, that missile is on the lead Dropship. I hope their close-in weapon system grid is active, or this could get real painful real fast for that ship." It would take another ten seconds for the first question to be answered, that the missile never made it to the Dropship. Two good bursts of laser AMS destroyed the missile's warhead at range and prevented it from even touching the ship in a notable fashion.

"This is seventeen, proceeding to engage with cluster bombs."

"Boss, fifteen, I see a second set of SAM tracks and trucks to Southeast. Looks like a second battery that may be trying to feed off the radars from the first battery."

"Fifteen, eleven, engage at discretion. Render that battery inoperable."

Pilots fifteen and sixteen broke right, bringing their altitude down to 5000 meters above ground, and switched off their radars to prevent the enemy getting an easy position fix on them. Without a clear tracking picture, the second battery could do nothing more than fire on the Dropships as they continued their descent. The second battery lofted four SAMs immediately, followed by a pair, then another pair, spread between two Dropships in the lead wave.

"SAM stovepipes coming up! Intercept those!" The Star Captain shouted.

"On it, sir!" Zipper 22 answered the call to action with a pair of AAMs from his light weapons arsenal. One of the SC-Sidewinder missiles failed to guide properly, the other missile detonated alongside the SAM he targeted. The tandem-charge ABF / Continuous Rod warheads loosed a pair of explosive-forged cutting rings of tungsten into the side of the missile body, the pair of continuous-rod segments were both able to completely sever the SAM just behind the 330lb explosive warhead and the now-decapitated SAM rocket engine continued on course but completely missed the Dropship.

"Got this one," Velasquez answered coldly as his medium pulse lasers tracked and subsequently blew two scorches through the guidance section of the missile. Without the all-important computer controls, the missile continued straight until it ran out of rocket propellant and simply collapsed into the forests below.

"Got a two-fer," Zipper 9 said after she had done his handiwork. Her first hits were a pair of ER Large Lasers to one missile (an explosive cook-off once the lasers penetrated to the rocket engine), the second round was by way of the paired Medium Pulse Lasers and single ER Medium Laser in the nose of her fighter, ample damage to cook off the warhead in the SAM.

Two more of the older S-300 modernized missiles were intercepted by the point defense weapons on the Dropships, but two got through. There was something of a sense of unreality to it, Star Commander Thompson admitted to himself. You saw the SAM slam into the side of the Dropship, you heard the foul language of the affected Dropship's crew, but the ship just kept going. It roughly equated to a reality from the movies the Star Commander loved watching, be it shooting a zombie in the chest with a pistol: you could hammer on it all day, you're still going to be dinner for the undead before sunset. And the enemy just wasn't smart enough to shoot for the head.

"Zipper 12, Magnum (2) on first SAM site, time to impact five seconds," the Star Commander's wingman reported, since the order to maneuver disrupted the initial attack plan.

"Zipper 15, drop four, drop four," he reported as the fighter lined up on the second SAM battery and loosed four 500-kilo bombs, two of which were cluster bombs. He pulled up off the target as the enemy battery loosed a revenge shot at his fighter. "Aww shit! Picked one up! Going ballistic!" Even with the destruction of the main SAM radar system, the missile was already on 'terminal' active radar guidance (a characteristic of the latter S-300PMU-4 missiles of the 2040s) and continued its pursuit of the large-and-easily-seen Fireball Aerofighter.

"Go motherfucker go!" Zipper 18 half-shouted. "Going guns on the first site TEL (3) trucks!"

"I will thank you not to call me a motherfucker while I'm being chased by a kamikaze telephone pole!" Zipper Fifteen complained as he continued up, up, until he exceeded the missile's operational ceiling (where it could continue accelerating flight, but could not maneuver because the fins did not have enough air to guide against). Once he passed 45 kilometers AGL, the pilot banked his fighter around and back down toward the ground, while the missile tried to steer on him and simply kept going up until it ran out of fuel.

"Welcome back to the upper atmosphere, Zipper Fifteen. Heard you had some Eurasians trying to ram a telephone pole up your arse. Need a hand with that?" the Flight Controller on the _Golden Phoenix_ asked.

"Uh, negative, Flight Control, I think we got this one," Fifteen said as he began his descent back to the unit formation.

"Control, Zipper Eleven, reporting primary enemy SAM site has been scratched," the Star Commander reported after Zipper 13 dropped five cluster bombs on the spread-out SAM trucks. "Total eleven launches, two hits on two dropships. No major problems."

"Weasel Zippers, Flight Control, good show. Remain on station while Dropships begin their landing procedures."

-x-x-x-

(15 April CE 73, 2200 Hours UTC)  
>(Heaven's Base, Iceland, Earth Alliance territory)<p>

"This just in from Moscow, sir. One of the SAM batteries in the Arkangelsk province reported contact with a large group of Dropships, reported missiles fired, then went off the air all inside the space of four minutes. No updates."

"Holy fucking shit," Rear Admiral Brian Gupten said. Since Sutherland had been dethroned and subsequently captured by Mendel, he was now the reigning officer on deck. Unfortunately, he knew he was well out of his depth when playing against Mendel and he was also taciturn enough to be unwilling to admit it.

"Sir, that's heartland Eurasia and Europe. North America is next," Captain Fedden pointed out.

"Right," the over-promoted section chief (Gupten) answered. "All North American forces on alert, have our midwest forces entrain and prepare to cover the open plains. It's obvious they're not hitting the islands or peninsulas, which is against their own doctrine, so they're landing in open territory away from major forces."

"Makes sense," Captain Fedden agreed. If there was any such place in America, the open plains states west of the Mississippi River was it. Anywhere from Texas to Montana would fit the bill on their pattern so far. "Observation, how long until the _Mjolnr_ is in position to deploy their forces?"

"Should be launching now, sir. They're doing cleanup suborbital attacks on Eurasian military bases."

"Got it," Captain Fedden answered. "The launch cycle for their dropships is 30 minutes, plus twelve for entry, so that will give us a final indicator of where they intend to hit us."

"So, they deploy no less than 42 minutes out of the target window. I hope they are punctual about it," the Rear Admiral hoped aloud.

"Uh, sir, we have a problem. Observation Iceland has reported that the _Mjolnr_ is launching both Dropships and their escorts, as well as something else — smaller objects, look vaguely aerodynamic. We have video, main screen."

All eyes went to the new video footage on the main screen. From several ports on the side of the massive warship, small objects began exiting at regular intervals, as well as the same pods from some of the Dropships.

"What the hell are those?" Gupten asked nobody in particular.

"Those are atmospheric entry pods. They're dropping some heavy gear before they put the Dropships on the ground."

"Rear Admiral, Observation is now reporting that the Dropships have separated but are thrusting to slow down. They're not, repeat, not dropping in immediately."

"Okay, I'm confused now," Rear Admiral Gupten said. "What are they intending now?"

"Combat drop," Captain Fedden said. "Those pods are waiting Battlemechs and Mobile Suits. They intend to land in some kind of heavy-populated or defended area."

"But… where?" Gupten asked. "Washington? New York? Chicago? What?"

"Obs, have any of those machines begun dropping?" Fedden asked.

"Negative, they're just holding inertia with the Dropships and warship — stand by, correction, observation is reporting first thirty machines are on the way down now." The Operator that was receiving the take from Observation sounded extremely frightened by the prospect of a combat drop. ZAFT had done the same thing in years past, and the results were startlingly effective; her town in Southern Eurasia has been flattened by a ZAFT orbital drop, thus her fears.

"Track those pods, I want to know where they are going."

"Initial course, expectation of landing is… the great lakes area?" the Operator asked herself, questioning what her systems were telling her.

"Great Lakes?" Captain Fedden asked. "Oh, shit. Fuck us sideways."

"What? What's so bad about that? There's nothing of importance in that area!" Rear Admiral Gupten half-wailed.

"And that's the point. No major forces in the area, no major facilities worth guarding, all our sizable formations are two or three states away at the best. If they are landing in, say, Chicago, it would take us days to shift more than a Brigade of forces into their theater."

"Oh, shit, and the landing forces are to ensure that the garrison technical units we have don't interfere with the dropships putting down."

"Rear Admiral! Second landing force is coming down in Indianapolis! They're hitting multiple locations!" A different Observation Operator reported.

"Talk to me, Fedden. What the hell are they thinking?" Rear Admiral Gupten asked.

"I don't know, this is completely against Magi policy for invading a planet," Captain Fedden answered. "They're breaking all of their own rules. They're not dropping into limiting terrain. They're dropping into cities. They're using suborbital bombardment to hit forces as well as strategic assets. It's almost like they're playing completely against type!"

"Damn, I wish I had Badgiruel or Sutherland here for pointers," Rear Admiral Gupten complained.

_I wish we had Sutherland or Badgiruel here for actual command purposes_, Captain Fedden thought but did not speak aloud. Saying something as sensible and honest as that in the command center of the Earth Alliance forces was a sure way to end his career, and better than fifty-fifty odds he would be shot for it.

"Well, sir, we could always ask Mendel for them back," Captain Fedden said facetiously. "Or we can worry about the problem in front of us," he continued in a more obviously serious manner.

"Hell with the personnel. How? I'm not seeing options here, Captain. We just don't have enough forces to repel them before they take hold."

"They broke all the rules, and we've lost," Captain Fedden said dejectedly.

"Captain Fedden, more descent points for their forces, clusters are headed to Saint Louis, Missouri, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That's five cities, all with no more than a brigade total of reinforcements." The Operator handed him a folder with numbers and estimated drop locations. "First units should be entering the atmosphere in the next ten minutes. Fighters are entering the atmosphere in five."

"Game's over," Fedden groused.

"What?" Rear Admiral Gupten asked.

"Game's over," he repeated. "Mendel is now officially playing for keeps. And they're going to have our asses for breakfast."

"I can't do this," Rear Admiral Gupten half-growled mostly to himself. "I can't take this," he repeated several times more, evidencing the fact that he was starting to suffer a mental breakdown.

"Admiral?" Fedden asked.

"Rear Admiral, I have Chairman Riseman on line one," and an operator held a phone out to him.

"I can't take this," the Rear Admiral said as he turned away from the phone, then looked to the world map of Earth Alliance forces. He simply stared at it for thirty seconds, looking over the collection of red dots that now represented destroyed bases or formations. Twenty-four hours prior, the only notable dots were the team that was holding Lacus and the bridge outside of Chicago. Now, the world was streaked with red in some places, where the blood of Earth Alliance troops was probably still seeping into the ground.

"I can't take this any more," Rear Admiral Gupten said as his right hand went to his sidearm.

"NO!" Captain Fedden shouted. Everyone in the room blanched after the inevitable gunshot, though thankfully nobody was in the path of the debris from his self-inflicted headshot. "Jesus Christ! He — " Fedden looked away after a few moments, then slammed the console of radios next to him.

"Erm, now what?" the lead Operator asked nobody in particular, still holding a live phone with Chairman Riseman on the line.

"Give me the phone." Captain Fedden brought the receiver to his head. "Chairman Riseman, Captain Keith Fedden, Intelligence Division. I take it you just heard that?"

"Yes, son, I did," the Chairman said in a wearied tone. "We've had two here at the Capitol. I don't have anyone ranking right now that isn't already compromised or out in the field. You're it for now. Can you do it?"

Captain Fedden gulped against the indirect order he just received. This was the kind of scenario that was mostly heard of coming out of Soviet Russia long in the past, where an officer would 'commit suicide' and a subordinate would jump up to the position. In this case, though, they weren't fighting the Nazis, they were fighting an Empire that had slain the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese more than once in its past, as well as various communist governments and nastier parties over the millennia of its existence. Even if he took command, he knew the Earth Alliance had no real hope of winning.

"I'll do what I can, Chairman, but I have no expectation of defeating Mendel even in part."

Chairman Riseman sighed. "My security personnel are telling me the same thing, Captain. I don't expect you'll win, but I want to see them bleed as much as possible."

"I think I can make them hurt," Keith Fedden judged that at least that position was within his grasp.

"Very well. I am field-promoting you to Admiral as of right now. Get your command center cleaned up, then make something happen. I am heading to Bunker 221 in southern Mississippi, I will be out of touch for a while."

"Safe trip, sir. Heaven's Base is out," Fedden set down the phone receiver in the cradle. He would not realize until later that day that the order to promote him to Admiral would be the last order that Riseman ever gave. "All right, two MPs, remove Gupten's body and take it down to medical."

"Sir!" two of the door guards moved forward and began the process of removing the deceased Rear Admiral.

"All right, people, listen up! We're about to get corncobbed by Mendel. We can't stop them from dropping in, and we won't be able to stop them from digging in. What we can do, though, is make their stay in North America and Europe very painful." He had already made the mental leap of faith to write off Central Eurasia as a lost cause, since all terrain factors favored Mendel. Europe and North America were a wildly different set of stories, though. "We need immediate response forces, and we need a staging location for a heavy force to be assembled…"

-x-x-x-

(15 April CE 73, 1600 Hours Lima (UTC-7))  
>(Rural Weld County, Colorado Territory, Old United States province of the Atlantic Federation)<p>

"How did they localize us again?" Ghost Officer Benjamin Jones asked after a few moments of looking around at the troops who were trying to 'hound' him into the hunter-killer assets of the search party.

"I don't know?" Lacus asked, bewildered that the enemy troops they had let march by in hours past were now trying to track them down again.

"We keep moving," Benjamin said, before he turned south to take a side road away from their axis of advance.

"Can they hear us?"

"Not likely, not at this range. Keep your voice down, though," Benjamin cautioned. At a regular walking pace, his armor was mostly silenced due to the anti-grav systems and special contact plates that reduced friction and impact noise.

Lacus sighed quietly, looking into the blue sky. After a few moments, she squinted to try to help her focus on an object well above her. "Are those fighters?"

"Where?" Lacus pointed to the sky. "Oh yes, fighters! Wish I could communicate with them, but the enemy has ELINT (4) helicopters in the area, so that would be bad for us."

-x-x-x-

(Warship _Mjolnr_)

_Oh yes, fighters! Wish I could communicate with them, but the enemy has ELINT helicopters in the area, so that would be bad for us_, Calamira Weste could hear from Benjamin's thoughts.

Per orders from Division Commander Centara, the rescue of Lacus Clyne and Kira Yamato was a high-priority mission. The _Dominion_ was the ship tasked to it, but the rest of the touman would have to help make it a reality. That included the Strategic Psionic, who was listening to them to help determine what kind of support was needed.

After a few moments considering it, Calamira Weste picked up a radio microphone and dialed her console map into the area of the escape and evasion. It took her a few seconds to determine what fighters were in the area, but…

"Hornet Element, Strategic Officer Weste, stand to for frag orders," she prompted the pilots in the area.

"Command, Hornet Zero, send your traffic," the Star Captain of the Trinary answered immediately.

"Hornet, requesting immediate frag order to sweep and clear all Earth Alliance forces north of the South Platte River and east-west bounded by county road 18 and county road 29. I am uploading a frag box to your units now," Calamira drew out a box that was roughly 17 kilometers wide (east-west) and 42 kilometers long (north-south), then uploaded it to Hornet Element. "How copy, Hornet?"

"Hornet has good copy, 15 pairs to sting the enemy are rolling in now."

"Enemy ECM, ELINT, and Recon assets are to be considered high priority. Good hunting, Hornet." Calamira let go of the microphone and set it back in the cradle.

-x-

"Did someone answer our prayers?" Lacus asked after the fighters began their turn in on their area, including some missile launches at targets outside of the area that the Ghost and rescuee were in.

"Not prayers, thoughts," Benjamin said. "We're being listened to from on high."

"Calamira Weste," Lacus said flatly.

"Yeah, and she realized that we could use a hand." To point of fact, one of the first fly-overs of the massive Fireball Aerofighters was a pair with large rapid-fire cannons that sprayed down the APC and troops that were trying to close in on the Ghost. "Oh wow, Charlie-variant Fireballs! That's some serious shred, boys! 60mm gatlings, one under each wing, designed to rip up infantry and light armor. Couldn't ask for better on this close-support run!"

Despite the hellish dump of ordinance from the pair of fighters nearby, the bulk of the aerofighters were geared up mostly for anti-armor or anti-air work, with bombs and some missiles available for anti-infantry work. This was evidenced by their ability to destroy APCs, helicopters, and aircraft with extreme ease, but dealing with the individual Infantry was not so easy. "Not many of those variants?"

"No, Charlie is a lesser-used version of the Fireball weapons. The A, G and D variants are the most common, followed by Prime, B, E, and D2, and I guess you could say F and C variants bring up the rear in official gun setups. Of course, any pilot that flies for more than two years usually has their own pref for weapons spreads."

"Why so much? Can't one fighter do it all?" Lacus asked after a few moments of watching the Fireballs criss-cross the sky with F7-D Spearhead fighters now joining the fray.

"One fighter is doing it all. The difference is each fighter has internal framework to simply change the weapons out in a modular fashion."

"Oh, that isn't really clear," Lacus said, but she filed it away for future reference.

-x-

"Hey, guys, we have a friendly down there!" Hornet 7 half-shouted. "I just sensed a Ghost on the ground!"

"Damn good!" Hornet Zero shouted. "That Ghost is Jonesy, with Lacus Clyne in tow! No wonder we got fragged a quarter way across the country to an area with no notable targets."

"Yeah, when 25 and 26 shot up that infantry fighting vehicle, they rescued the Ghost."

"All right, 7, keep us apprised of where they are. We'll avoid dropping a bomb on them." Even in such a happenstance, Jonesy would probably survive. Lacus probably would not.

"Got them! Avoid state highway 71 just south of Snyder. They're going for the bridge across the South Platte!"

"Roger that," Hornet Zero acknowledged. "Hornet Element, I want all AEW, ELINT, and Recon units hammered into scrap and bloody red paste. After that, we go until we're Winchester (5) or Bingo (6), whichever happens first, follow?"

"_HAI_!" thirty voices shouted in response to Hornet Zero's orders.

"Command! Tracking radars! Type Avenger light SAM systems!" Hornet 16 reported.

"Ignore them. The light SAMs used by the Avenger SAM are not capable of downing a Fireball." Two missiles came up, locked onto the superhot exhaust of a nearby Fireball, but both impacts did little more than scratch the paint and damage armor plates. "Okay, if they're that stupid, take them out of the equation."

"Zero, this is Seven, Ghost Ben Jones is crossing the bridge now. All we need to do is distract them some more."

"Do it," Hornet Zero answered. "Good luck, Jones. You'll need it." He looked up and about at some of the F-7D craft in the area, singling a couple out for air-to-air missiles. "All right, people, start killing them north to south. We want to make it look like the Ghost is running northbound."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Chapter Afterword<strong>:

And herein begins the actual invasion of the planet.

First off, I want to start my notes out with a little bit of a technological discussion. I'm going to start this note section by, sadly, taking a big old piss on the Gundam franchise. As much as I hate to have to admit it, I must make mention that the arsenal of the Gundam shows is by technicality wildly inferior to real-life weapon systems. This is especially true in air combat and anti-air combat. In the annals of Gundam SEED, there are some dedicated anti-air cannon or gun systems, but for the most part the SEED series pretty much pisses away the past fifty years worth of surface to air missile developments. Quite frankly, the expected best a surface-to-air missile would do in SEED is roughly the equivalent of the old Nike SAM system, which by the numbers was lucky to be in the right time zone for its terminal intercept phase. With modern surface-to-air missiles such as the United States Navy Standard Missile system or the Russian Federation S-400 missile system, it would be quite literally possible for the Russians to flatline an enemy Air Force that originated in the SEED timeline with little to no expectation of casualties on their side. Even discounting most radar systems by way of the neutron jammer system, the lethality of modern surface-to-air missiles is far in excess of the pithy anti-air work that you see in the anime series.

Given that I tend to write a lot closer to reality than simply sticking to Gundam SEED principles and equipment, I am dredging up some of the newer and older weapon systems in use around the world, and using those to bolster the absolutely piss-poor military forces in use on earth. Do not get me wrong, this is not a case of me trying to even the playing field against the Magi, mainly because I do not believe in fair fighting, this is simply attaching some semblance of reality to the anime that presents some pretty good technologies but completely ignores extant weapon systems and realities to push those technologies as absolute. Going strictly by default stock arsenals would be like asking a class of sixth-graders armed with popsicle sticks to attempt to knock over the Army of, say, the People's Republic of China. By the numbers, it would be theoretically possible for the sixth-graders to win, if all the stars in the heavens aligned properly and all manner of luck and fortune bequeathed solely unto the sixth-graders, but in realistic expectation my money would be on the Chinese. The disparity in tactics and technologies and weapon systems is so grossly different that I simply cannot ignore this with any expectation of presenting a more realistic story. Besides, by throwing in more and more proper weapon systems, you get to see quite a bit more battles and carnage along the way. Two bonuses for the price of one I'd say.

Now that that is out of the way, onto the meat of the chapter. This is where you see the individual campaigns beginning - one campaign in North America, one campaign in Europe, one campaign in the middle of Asia, and some pretty good blasting and bashing and down in Central America which will be followed by some various ass beating in the Caribbean. Somehow, I foresee bikinis and beach babes and white sand beaches in the future for the South Americans, but as with anything I tend to plan, I have this feeling that it's not going to be a bed of roses for the involved parties. Call that a gut instinct on the author's part. The middle of Asia, specifically the middle of one big ass desert, is probably going to be the calmest of the operational theaters, at least in terms of scale of battles. With a lot more territory to work against and with enemy forces being terrain-limited, expect skirmishes on the far Eastern front to be fast and brutal. There will be some more extended campaigning in the vicinity of some of the cities, but that is to be expected.

Europe is going to be a serious bitch for everybody involved. On the plus side, Mendel has their backs anchored by way of the Kingdom of Scandinavia. On the downside, Europe has always been fairly densely populated, fairly rough terrain, very heavily forested, and there will be a lot of military force concentrated in small areas to attempt to counter the Magi forces arrayed against them. On the other hand, the forced close quarters of terrain and forest trees might actually work to the advantage of the invading party; Armored Infantry tend to be very efficient at butchering enemy armor and mobile assets, especially in close. Using forests as screening to get close to those assets is a known viable tactic, especially since large swaths of forest tend to very easily conceal troop movements.

The invasion of North America is going to be the hardest one of all for the Magi. The exception being the base of Alaska, with very rare exception the North American theater was almost completely untouched by the war effort the first time around. With little to no civilian damages sustained and with large concentrations of troops, the Atlantic Federation is mostly well-prepared to repel a legion of enemy forces. The caveat to that consideration, though, is that those forces are postured in the wrong directions, sitting in the wrong encampments, and mostly in the wrong place to do defensive operations against troops that are busy landing at this time. The question now becomes how quickly and how efficiently can the Earth Alliance forces shift larger formations into the invasion area and deploy them efficiently against entrenched defenses in the hope of dislodging Mendel and booting them off planet. Initiative in this case goes to Mendel, for their extremely unorthodox invasion plan, but the consideration of initiative only lasts for a short while; what happens after that is what really defines the winner and loser.

And then there is the ghost and the singer. Two persons on the run from Blue Cosmos hunters in the middle of Colorado, over 1000 kilometers away from friendly territory. Something is allowing the Blue Cosmos troops to track the ghost, the question becomes what is tracking them and how is it dealt with. As will be demonstrated in chapters to come, it is not electronic tracking that is being used against the ghost. Of course, a rescue operation has already been laid in to pick her up, but that operation is going to start by picking up the other half – Kira Yamato – and then shift over to Colorado, which technically by Mendel's battle plan will be unsecured territory for some time. Running one of the Archangel class ships up into that area on a rescue mission is going to be a very risky proposition to begin with. On the other hand, the sheer noise factor and public relations victory that would come from rescuing Lacus Clyne would very likely well outweigh any risks taken by such a warship, and then there is the factor of honor as seen by Mendel. Lacus Clyne went out of her way to save lives during the first war, and Magi forces tend to honor that. Even if the Magi institutionally do not agree with her policies, they will honor her prior actions.

The Earth Alliance got their digs in this chapter, one very large one being the early section with the submarine warfare. By effectively scaring the Scandinavians out of the puddle, for at least a brief respite they now have unrestricted run of the oceans around Iceland. For what it is worth, though, don't expect that some freedom of movement under the waves will make a huge difference in the land campaigns; with most of their resources tied up locally already by the ground invasions, and with major mobility options restricted because the submarines have limited carrying capacity, further naval effects from undersea forces will be minimized. Sailing their little boats around on the surface of the ocean is effectively a losing proposition; even if they are defended against Scandinavian submarines, surface naval assets are subject to suborbital fire from Mendel's space warships. If suborbital cannon fire from one of the Phalanx-class warships can effectively rubble a nuclear missile silo, there is little doubt that the same cannon as applied to a surface naval warship is going to put that warship down on the bottom of the sea as a freshly-minted coral reef.

At this point, this is where the renewed Inferno In Chicago begins. With the invasion now well underway, it is time for the major ground campaigns to start taking hold. This is where the fate of nations is written. This is where history shall be written. And I promise to you, this will be a very bloody history.

**NEXT UP**: With the command to invade, a long line of fierce fighting is put into motion. The fates of nations shall change incoming chapters, lives will be saved, lives will be lost, and not even the author has a proper clue who will survive. The dice will be making many choices in paragraphs to come.

* * *

><p><strong>Review Replies<strong>: 10 Reviews for the #10 chapter of Flight — and, oddly enough, the last chapter I did of this work was February. Been a while, so thank you all!

_Damrhein_: The Ship's Jester may make a showing in this story sometime through, but more likely, you will see new jokers in the coming Sets.

As to AAA crossing with some of my other stories, well, *CLASSIFIED*. Sorry about that.

_Klever Kilva_: In AAA, Star Trek and Babylon are already in the pool as random possibles. Traveller I have never heard of, and Star Trek is on my author's shitlist.

_Unafraid_: And this kind of journey will be hit-and-miss, due to the campaigning to come, but they might get back together :)

_Fireminer_: Naval battles are over for now, but there may be more in chapters to come and definitely WILL be many more naval scraps in Sets to come.

DFA is on the list of stories to update in the next couple passes. Had to move JW2 forward for the next of DFA to not be spoilerrific.

_C0dy 88_: No Djibril action in this chappie, but he will get some serious bad omens in the next chapter :)

_Hellhound DOW_:Answer: Benjamin succeeded in that feat of anger dumping :)

The dogs of war are on the run now, amigo. Any opinion appreciated :)

As to Gerald, Rini, and Stan in the same room as the Extendeds, they noticed but figured the two were asleep, and in all reality it didn't much matter if what they heard made some rounds — in fact, Hotaru wanted it to be heard, so she didn't alter any of the events directly. You'll see the echoes of that plan in one of the last chapters of the set.

_Sajuuk_: The rescue operations will mostly be covered in Dilemma of Flay Allster. Stand by for it.

It's not so much saving the gear as it is simply capturing the facilities that produce it. You will see a lot of captures involved.

Oh, on the thoughts of going to new universes, allay your fears. In 72,000 years of storyline, the Mendel forces will be going places that are excessively different from the Gundam timelines….and recursively back into Gundam just the same. I have a lot of writing to go still :)

_Gulping (ANON Repeater)_: Gai Murakumo will be taking up some action in this story, and especially in the side stories, to come :)

_Flawless Cowboy 2552_: Not a direct relation of the Auditore, but there have been some Assassins inside the Magi Commandos….and there will be a lot of them in this story as well.

_Holy Dragoon_: Well, time for you to sink your teeth into some more story action, and laugh a little bit more :)

THANK YOU ALL FOR THE REVIEWS! This is what manner of gasoline I want to see on the fire :)

* * *

><p><strong>The Gripe Sheet<strong>:

No gripes from the prior chapter. Much thanks to **Sieben Nightwing**, **Takeshi Yamato**, and **Necroblade** for keeping it straight!

* * *

><p><strong>Footnotes<strong>:

(1): **Cavitation** is where short, rapid movements underwater create a sound that can be picked up by sonar systems. This is typically caused by moving too fast and forming bubbles in the water, which can be heard popping by sonar operators.

(2): **SNIPER** is the NATO brevity code for an order to fire an anti-radar missile at a target, usually at either a SAM system or at a warship with a SAM radar array.

(3): **Magnum** is the NATO brevity code for HARM (Anti-radar missiles) fired at enemy SAM systems. In Magi use, this is usually followed by expected time to impact.

(4): **T**ransporter / **E**rector / **L**auncher. Everything a SAM system needs except the initial radar track on the target, which is usually provided by an external radar system.

(5): **El**ectronic **Int**elligence units. Units outfitted with special receivers and systems to detect and localize unidentified enemy electronic communications.

(6): **Winchester** is the NATO brevity code for 'out of ammo'. This can still apply to Magi aerofighters, if they run their external stores dry, their internal ammo magazines empty, and all they have left is a couple minor lasers.

(6): **Bingo** is the NATO brevity code for out of fuel to the point there is just enough to make it back to base safely.


End file.
